Einstein Center for Youth Mental Health (ECYM)

Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression, and personality disorders remain difficult to treat and pose a major challenge both for individuals and society. The first symptoms often appear in adolescence, i.e., between the ages of 12 and 25, a phase in which social and personal development is often decisive. The Einstein Center for Youth Mental Health (ECYM) aims to research both the conditions for better care and new approaches to the early detection of mental illness. Seven Berlin institutions—Charité, Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin), HU Berlin, TU Berlin, Vivantes, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt – will work together to find ways to detect mental illness earlier, understand it better, and treat it more effectively in 12- to 25-year-olds. Specifically, we will recruit approx. n=1000 individuals over 5 year period, comprising individuals at clinincal high-risk for psychosis, borderline personalitiy disorder, bipolar disorder as well as healthy controls. In addition, new therapies and care models will be developed and tested. ECYM is lead by Prof. Peter J. Uhlhaas. Among the scientific projects, ECYM will pioneer the application of OPM-MEG for the development of diagnostic and predictive biomarkers.

PTB-Charité OPM-MEG Center

A new PTB-Charité OPM-MEG center at the Berlin Center for advanced Neuroimaging (BCAN), Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, was established in 2025. The center houses a state-of-the-art, DFG-funded 96 OPM-MEG sensor Fieldline system. The Dept. of Biosignals (Head: Prof. P. Krüger) German Metrological Institute, and Prof. Peter J. Uhlhaas (Dept. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Charité, will jointly lead the center. OPMs utilize atoms in the gas phase that serve as sensitive magnetic field probes for electric activity of the brain. OPM-sensors have rapidly developed in the past two decades and now reach sensitivities similar to MEG-systems that employ Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs). Importantly, OPMs have several advantages over traditional SQUID-MEG systems since OPMs can operate at near room-temperatures without helium cooling. Moreover, OPMs can be located closer to the scalp than SQUID-sensors, resulting in improved signal-to-noise as well as facilitating measurements in pediatric and clinical populations.

Language Processing as a Window into Circuit Dysfunctions in Schizophrenia: A Computational and Magnetoencephalographical Approach

In this DFG-funded project, we will use OPM-MEG to examine language perception and production in patients with schizophrenia. In particular, we are interested to examine whether changes in neural oscillations may be related to patients’ difficulties in perceiving and generating language. Previous work has shown that language is intimately related to the way these oscillations are generated by the brain, suggesting that the inherent rhythmic structure of language is reflected in the ongoing oscillations of the brain.

Circuit Mechanisms of Gamma-Band Oscillations in Prefrontal Cortex in Schizophrenia: A Multimodal Neuroimaging and Computational Modelling Study

Cognitive deficits, such as impairments in cognitive control and working memory, are core aspects of schizophrenia that have been liked to circuit deficits in prefrontal cortex (PFC). One possible pathophysiological mechanism are gamma-band oscillations (30-100 Hz), which are functionally depended upon the balance between excitation and inhibition (E/I-balance), such as the integrity of parvalbumin-expressing (PV+) interneurons and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. The project will employ a multi-modal neuroimaging (OPM-MEG, EEG and MRS) and computational modelling approach to develop a novel, mechanistic framework to identify PFC-medicated cognitive deficits in schiztophrenia. The project is funded by Boehringer Ingelheim

Identifying Neural Signatures of Auditory-Predictive Processing in Schizophrenia: A Multi-Modal Imaging Approach

In this MRC-funded project, we will examine feedforward (FF)- and feedback (FB)-mediated processing in a sample of n = 30 early-stage ScZ patients and 30 clinical high-risk (CHR) participant and carry out MEG as well as 7T fMRI. This multi-modal imaging approach will allow fundamental insights into the neurobiology of FF and FB processing during auditory-predictive processing in ScZ. As a result, we expect that we will address the role of deficits in FF-mediated sensory processing vs. top-down mediated FB processing towards cognitive impairments in ScZ with important implication for current theories of cognitive dysfunctions and translational research. This is because FF and FB processing have been linked to distinct glutamatergic receptors during normal brain functioning that could in turn inform novel treatment developments for cognitive impairments in ScZ for which no effective treatments currently exist.

Developing an E-Mental Health Detection Tool for Early-Stage Psychosis in the Community

The current proposal will develop an innovative E-mental health detection tool to effectively improve the identification of young people with emerging psychosis, especially those who meet clinical high-risk criteria (CHR). This tool will be implemented on digital platforms including websites tablets and mobile phones. The project is funded by an Innovator Award of the Wellcome Trust and a collaboration with Prof. Paolo Fusar-Poli.