NeuroPsyGrid: Ontology for Psychosis

Developing an Ontology for Psychosis. NeuroPsyGrid is a collaborative project which aims to address key issues in data interoperability in mental health sciences by developing a shared domain ontology.

The aims of the Collaboration are:

• to harmonise and accelerate the work of PsyGrid and NeuroGrid towards a common database, a shared metadata model and an ontology of terms for psychosis relevant clinical and biological data, with a particular focus on changes around the time of onset.
• to assess the viability and usefulness of this system by combining existing first episode psychosis (FEP) data from the Edinburgh High Risk Study (EHRS) and other FEP data sets;
• to extend the PsyGrid structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) 3-site reliability study to include two centres from NeuroGrid, to repeat the scans one year later and include a functional MRI (fMRI) reliability study, to inform future multi-centre imaging studies; and
• to ensure that these data acquisition, storage and access arrangements are compatible with other major national developments such as the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN) and the Mental Health Minimum Data-set in the UK, and international initiatives such as the Brain Informatics Research Network (BIRN) in the USA; and thus
• to put UK clinical neuroscience researchers in a better position to mount multi-centre clinical studies and trials with neuro-imaging biomarkers with this informatics platform.