Emotional Well-being Project

This project is funded by an ARC-linkage grant (2009-11) with Brain Resource as industry partner, and Justine Gatt as ARC-linkage Research Fellow.

It draws on the INTEGRATE Model, which proposes that our core motivations to minimize danger and maximize reward are the driving principle of brain organization.  Relatedly, alterations in these motivations (such as an excessive sensitivity to potential danger) will be reflected in disrupted brain organization.

Disruptions to emotional brain function, feeling and emotion regulation are cardinal features of risk for disorders of mental health.

This project has two phases

1. Objective markers

From the INTEGRATE Model, we will identify objective markers of emotion, feeling and regulation that define the healthy brain, and risk for these disorders. This phase will be supported by data from the Brain Resource International Database, with our partner Brain Resource. We will examine psychological, brain and genetic information.

2. Heritability vs Environment

Assessment of twins in collaboration with the Australian Twin Registry will help us determine the relative contributions of heritability versus environmental factors (such as stress) to these markers.
Twins will be assessed on:

• Psychological measures of emotional function,
• Brain and body function measures implicated in emotion, feeling and regulation
• Genotyped for variants implicated in these same functions.
• Analyses such as path modelling will be used to test relationships between measures, and gene-environment contributions.

ARC-linkage team

Professor Lea Williams: Chief Investigator

Dr Justine Gatt: ARC-linkage Research Fellow and Co-Chief Investigator

Professor Peter Schofield: Co-Chief Investigator (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute)

Professor Richard Clark: Co-Chief Investigator (Cognitive Neuroscience Lab., Flinders University)

Dr Andrew Kemp: Co-Chief Investigator

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