Karissa Searle
University of Melbourne, VIC
Ian Scott PhD Scholarship
Mental Health 2009
Karissa Searle holds an Honours degree in Science from the University of Melbourne. Her studies focused on the areas of psychology and neuroscience. Through study in these areas Karissa established that adverse brain development and outcomes in the paediatric populations were her target interests.
In 2007 Karissa completed her honours year investigating the neural correlates of spatial working memory in young boys with dysthymic disorder using functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques. During this year she also gained part-time employment at the Academic Child Psychiatry Unit at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, where she obtained experience working with children within a clinical setting. In 2008 she further enhanced her knowledge about functional magnetic resonance imaging through full-time employment with the Howard Florey Institute, Neuroimaging group.
Karissa has been awarded the Ian Scott Mental Health Scholarship by Australian Rotary Health to undertake a full-time PhD with the University of Melbourne. Her PhD project will examine attention processes and mental health outcomes in a group of adolescents who where born extremely premature, using magnetic resonance imaging techniques. With a background in psychology and neuroscience, and a strong interest in paediatric mental health and brain development, Karissa hopes that her work will support a preventative approach to mental illness in the preterm population and will lead to better outcomes for those affected by these illnesses.
SUMMARY OF PROJECT:
Attention and Mental Health Outcomes in Extremely Low Birth Weight/Very Premature Infants: An fMRI Study of Adolescents
Advances in medical treatment over the last 30 years have vastly improved the survival rate of premature and very low birth weight babies, with most surviving without major disabilities. Unfortunately the improved survival rate has not been accompanied by improvements in cognitive and behavioural delays. In particular, inattention has been found to be the most commonly reported behavioural problem in very premature/low birth weight babies at all stages of development. The relationship between the attention problems and brain development needs to be further explored given the strong association between inattentive behaviour and the development of diagnosable Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The aim of this project is to determine the relationship between structural and functional brain differences in adolescents born premature and/or underweight, with a particular focus on attention processes. Importantly, this project will be the first to investigate the relationship between mental health outcomes and brain function in adolescents born very premature.
In this study, information about brain structure and function will be collected using non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging in a group of nearly 300 adolescents born extremely premature and/or underweight in 1991/1992. The information will be correlated with psychological and behavioural assessments. This combination of sophisticated brain imaging technology with behavioural data is the first comprehensive investigation of the interaction between brain function and attention processing; assumed to be important in the causes and symptoms of a range of disorders including ADHD and mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. By determining the underlying structural and functional bases of attention processing in this unique group of adolescents, Karissa’s study hopes to develop treatments to reduce long-term illness and the severity of developmental and behavioural delays.