Today, one in seven Canadian youth will experience mental illness, with rates of depression, anxiety, bipolar and other disorders on the rise over the past decade.
Many mental health challenges emerge in childhood and persist into adulthood, significantly impacting everything from daily functioning to work and school performance, social relationships and long-term wellbeing.
Early intervention and prevention strategies are urgently needed, and UBC researcher Dr. Sophia Frangou is at the forefront of a transformative new approach — personalized interventions based on brain imaging.
“Youth psychiatric disorders are complex conditions of the brain that vary greatly from person-to-person,” says Dr. Frangou, a professor of psychiatry and UBC President’s Excellence Chair in Brain Health. “Our thinking has shifted from a one-size-fits-all approach, to a focus on personalized care based on individuals’ unique brain biology.”
This move toward personalized, biologically informed interventions marks a major evolution in mental health care.
“Rather than simply saying that a young person has depression or another mental illness, we’ll be able to say this is how your brain is organized and here’s how we can best help you.”
– Dr. Sophia Frangou
Because everyone’s brain is shaped by their genes, experiences and surroundings, structural differences emerge that influence both mental resilience and vulnerability to mental illness. These unique brain patterns affect how people handle emotions, organize their thoughts, deal with stress and connect with others.
Using advanced neuroimaging and AI-based techniques, Dr. Frangou and her team are studying patterns of brain organization and how they differ among young people experiencing mental health problems. In doing so, they aim to pinpoint risk and protective factors that could promote better mental health at a highly individualized level.
“Rather than simply saying that a young person has depression or another mental illness, we’ll be able to say this is how your brain is organized and here’s how we can best help you,” says Dr. Frangou.
Dr. Frangou’s research is yielding promising results. In a recent study of children aged nine to ten, her team found that youth with mood and anxiety disorders showed three distinct patterns of brain maturation: accelerated, delayed and atypical.
Their analysis of each maturation pattern suggests tailored ways to help people based on their neurobiological profile. For example, children who showed a delayed or atypical pattern of brain maturation also had cognitive challenges, indicating the need for education support in addition to clinical care. Children in all three groups, but particularly those with atypical brain maturation, had higher exposure to family conflict and social adversity, highlighting the importance of social and family interventions.
“These findings are key to developing personalized treatments,” says Dr. Ruiyang Ge, the study’s first author and a research scientist in Dr. Frangou’s lab. “By identifying these patterns, we can target the needs of young people early on. And the earlier we intervene, the more likely we are to steer them toward a healthier trajectory.”
One of the most exciting aspects of this work is its potential to rapidly transform clinical practice.
Neuroimaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are already widely used in health care settings around the world, and the technology is becoming more accessible. Dr. Frangou hopes that in the near future, they’ll be able to seamlessly integrate their AI and computational models into the clinic, providing physicians with an easy-to-understand report that could guide clinical decisions for youth struggling with mental health issues.
“It’s an exciting shift toward earlier intervention and more effective and targeted care for many psychiatric and neurological disorders.”
– Dr. Lakshmi Yatham
The team’s neuroimaging research also has broad applications beyond youth mental health. Another recent project, CentileBrain, is helping clinicians detect a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders.
Using imaging data from more than 37,000 healthy individuals, CentileBrain establishes publicly available benchmarks for measures of brain anatomy and function. These benchmarks are akin to the use of biomarkers in other areas of medicine, where normal values for measures like blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar guide diagnosis and treatment. Establishing similar measures for brain anatomy can help physicians identify significant deviations from typical brain structures, such as those seen in schizophrenia, autism and dementia.
For Dr. Lakshmi Yatham, professor and head of UBC’s Department of Psychiatry, the integration of neuroimaging into the clinic represents a powerful opportunity.
“This really opens up a new era in psychiatry,” he says. “It’s an exciting shift toward earlier intervention and more effective and targeted care for many psychiatric and neurological disorders. Importantly, we’re working closely with clinical colleagues to translate innovations into real-world clinical care, ensuring that new developments benefit patients directly.” 
Related Stories
Never miss an issue of Pathways
Pathways — the UBC Faculty of Medicine’s digital magazine — features stories about cutting-edge health education, breakthrough research, and biomedical innovations that are making a difference in British Columbia and around the world. Discover the impact of our people and programs.
