Cohort Profile: The NSPN 2400 Cohort: a developmental sample supporting the Wellcome Trust NeuroScience in Psychiatry Network

Abstract

Mental and substance use disorders are the leading cause of years lived with disability, worldwide.1 Other than childhood developmental disorders and neurodegenerative dementias of the elderly, most mental health disorders are first manifest in the second and third decades of life during which the highest proportion of total disability adjusted life years occurs due to their enormous impact on normal, adolescent and young adult functioning;1 non-syndromal abnormalities can be identified far earlier in life. The normal human brain undergoes a range of normative developmental process during this extended post-pubertal epoch, but the events that account for the massive increases in risk for mental health disorders remain obscure, something compounded by the questionable validity of current psychiatric nosology. Thus, the development of preventative or disease-modifying approaches remain a distant goal.