WIP Special

BBC Study: Neuroimaging in the Early Assessment of First-Episode Psychosis

Presented by Hannah Brennan

Abstract: The Baseline Biomarker Check (BBC) study is a translational clinical-research platform developed in Oxford to enhance the early assessment of individuals presenting with a first episode of psychosis. Its core aim is to identify patients at risk of poor treatment response—either due to an underlying secondary (organic) cause or early signs of treatment resistance—in order to inform more stratified and personalised care.

Neuroimaging plays a central role in the BBC study, with MRI performed early in the clinical pathway and serving a dual purpose: (i) to aid clinical triage by detecting potentially treatable structural abnormalities, and (ii) to support research into imaging-based predictors of treatment response. The MRI protocol has been carefully designed to optimise both clinical sensitivity and research utility. It includes sequences tailored to identify structural pathology relevant to psychosis (e.g., T1, FLAIR, SWI), alongside advanced acquisitions for quantitative analysis (e.g.,neuromelanin-sensitive MRI, spectroscopy, and resting-state functional MRI).

In the clinical context, MRI is used to identify abnormalities—such as inflammatory, neoplastic, or cerebrovascular changes—that may warrant deviation from standard psychiatric care. On the research side, the study is investigating how variation in brain structure, functional connectivity, and neurometabolite profiles may relate to early treatment outcomes, with the longer-term goal of identifying imaging markers that can support prognostic stratification.
Ultimately, the BBC study seeks to demonstrate the clinical utility of incorporating MRI into routine early psychosis care, while building the evidence base for precision psychiatry approaches that integrate neuroimaging with cognitive, clinical, and biomarker data.

Image Quality Transfer Approach for Localising Deep Brain Stimulation Targets

Presented by Ying-Qui Zheng 

Abstract: Deep brain stimulation targeting has been a challenging task due to poor visualisation of target structures on conventional MRI. Clinicians typically rely on standardised atlases, which fail to account for individual anatomical variations. Connectivity-based tractography approaches offer a solution by identifying DBS targets through their unique connection patterns. However, these methods require high-quality diffusion imaging protocols rarely available clinically and remain sensitive to acquisition and processing variations. Here we propose an image quality transfer approach to accurately target the deep brain stimulation targets. Using the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus (Vim) as an example, we demonstrate that the approach can robustly and reliably identify Vim even with compromised data quality. The approach can be adapted to other deep brain structures. We will demonstrate our tool, “localise”, which can be customised to localise any brain regions for which detailed connectivity information is available.