Research Focus
Our vision is to improve the prediction and characterization of psychiatric disorders across the lifespan and contribute to developing new prevention and personalized treatment strategies and identifying new treatment targets.
We use multi-modal neuroimaging techniques to elucidate the complex relationships between brain, body, cognition and mental health and how these relationships are modulated by environmental and biological factors. In close collaboration with our clinical partners, we employ state of the art multimodal brain imaging and electrophysiological techniques to elucidate the neurobiological and neurocognitive signatures of risk, resilience and disease in different at-risk and neuropsychiatric populations.
Research Projects
Our neuroscientific research is highly interdisciplinary. In close collaboration with our clinical partners, we employ state of the art multimodal brain imaging and electrophysiological techniques to elucidate, characterize and monitor the neurobiological and neurocognitive signatures of risk, resilience and disease in different at-risk and neuropsychiatric populations. We are currently involved in the following projects:
Danish high risk and resilience study (VIA)
The Danish High Risk and Resilience Study –VIA – is a national longitudinal study of 522 children at age seven (VIA7) born to parents with or without a diagnosis of either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. “VIA” is the Latin word for road and describes the overall purpose of the project to investigate the developmental path of children with vulnerabilities. At DRCMR we perform EEG and MRI as part of the VIA Brainmap group. See more here: www.drcmr.dk/via.
People: William Baare, Hartwig Siebner, Kathrine Skak Madsen, Júlia Díaz I Calvete, Mathias Andersen, Vasilis Loakeimidis, Adam Kaminski, Weijian Liu, Daban K.A. Sulaiman, Maja Revien Johannesen, Anders Jin Romar Pagsberg
TECTO Brain Imaging
TECTO (Treatment Effects of Family-based Cognitive Therapy in Children and Adolescents with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is large collaborative study with national and international partners led by Anne Katrine Pagsberg from the Research Unit - Child and Adolescent Mental Health Centre (CAMHC), Mental Health Services, Capital Region, that combines a randomized clinical trial and longitudinal case-control design to elucidate how neural, cognitive, emotional, and neuroendocrine factors moderate and mediate family based cognitive behavioral therapy (FCBT) response in pediatric patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). TECTO is the first large random clinical trial (RCT) in pediatric OCD to include neuroimaging. Characterizing the neural underpinnings of response to FCBT is essential for improving treatment efficacy and identifying potential new treatment targets. See more here.
People: Melissa Larsen, William Baare, Hartwig Siebner, Janine Bühler, Maria Del Lucero Pacheco Blas
FAMILY
As part of the VIA Brainmap study, we are part of the EU funded project FAMILY. FAMILY is a multidisciplinary initiative that aims to improve the lives of mentally ill persons and their families. FAMILY will build models to predict whether mental illness will be transmitted across generations or not. Furthermore, FAMILY addresses key ethical and social issues raised by risk prediction for clinical use, such as the right not to know and the risk of stigma.
People: Melissa Larsen, William Baare, Hartwig Siebner, Kathrine Skak Madesen
SOCO
SOCO, a study to determine classifiers associated with two aspects of social cognition relevant to patients with schizophrenia and autism: Mentalizing and Self-Referential processing, is a newly started collaborative study between DRCMR and the child and adolescent psychiatry unit (CAMHC) with the lead of James Blair (CAMHC). The study includes 180 typically developing adolescents in the age range 14-17 years. The study will later on include adolescents with psychosis with the goal to develop new bio-markers of the neural systems implicated in psychosis-relevant aspects of social cognition.
People: Melissa Larsen, Hartwig Siebner, Janine Bühler
Selected Publications
Habla AF, Soleim SB, Due AS, Tinglef TH, Eskelund K, Díaz-I-Calvete J, Larsen KM, Kristensen TD, Ebdrup BH, Nordentoft M, Lyngholm D, Miskowiak KW, Ambrosen KS, Birkedal Glenthøj L. Study protocol for a randomized clinical pilot trial investigating feasibility and efficacy of augmenting a virtual reality-assisted intervention targeting auditory verbal hallucinations with biofeedback: The Neuro-VR study. PLoS One. 2026 Feb 26;21(2):e0333716. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0333716. PMID: 41746906; PMCID: PMC12944719.
Larsen KM, Díaz-i-Calvete J, Themaat AH, Thorup AE Plessen KJ, Nordentoft M, Siebner HR. Comparable 40 Hz auditory steady-state responses in children at familial high risk for schizo-phrenia or bipolar disorder and population-based controls. Neuroimage Clin. 2025 doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2025.103841.
Larsen KM, Madsen KS, Themaat AHVL, Thorup AE, Plessen KJ, Mors O, Nordentoft M, Siebner HR. Children at familial high risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder exhibit altered con-nectivity patterns during pre-attentive processing of an auditory prediction error. Schizophr Bull. 2024 doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbad092.
Larsen KM. Auditory Steady-State Responses Probe GABA-Related Oscillatory Cortical Circuits and Their Relation to Neurodevelopmental Mental Disorders. Am J Psychiatry. 2022 doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2021.22010017.
Funch Uhre V, Larsen KM, Marc Herz D, Baaré W, Katrine Pagsberg A, Roman Siebner H. Inhibitory control in obsessive compulsive disorder: A systematic review and activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Neuroimage Clin. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103268.
Jefsen OH, Shtyrov Y, Larsen KM, Dietz MJ. The 40-Hz auditory steady-state response in bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis. Clin Neurophysiol. 2022 doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2022.06.014
Thorup AAE, Hemager N, Bliksted VF, Greve AN, Ohland J, Wilms M, Rohd SB, Birk M, Bundgaard AF, Laursen AF, Jefsen OH, Steffensen NL, Andreassen AK, Veddum L, Knudsen CB, Enevoldsen M, Nymand M, Brandt JM, Søndergaard A, Carmichael L, Gregersen M, Krantz MF, Burton BK, Dietz M, Nudel R, Johnsen LK, Larsen KM, Meder D, Hulme OJ, Baaré WFC, Madsen KS, Lund TE, Østergaard L, Juul A, Kjær TW, Hjorthøj C, Siebner HR, Mors O, Nordentoft M. The Danish High-Risk and Resilience Study-VIA 15 – A Study Protocol for the Third Clinical Assessment of a Cohort of 522 Children Born to Parents Diagnosed With Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder and Population-Based Controls. Front Psychiatry. 2022 Apr 4;13:809807. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.809807.
I Dzafic, KM Larsen, H Darke, H Pertile, O Carter, S Sundram, MI Garrido. Stronger Top- Down and Weaker Bottom-Up Frontotemporal Connections During Sensory Learning Are associated With Severity of Psychotic Phenomena. Schizophr Bull. 2021 doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbaa188.
Taylor JA, Larsen KM, Garrido MI. Multi-dimensional predictions of psychotic symptoms via machine learning. *Hum Brain Mapp. 2020 doi: 10.1002/hbm.25181.
Larsen KM, Pellegrino G, Birknow MR, Kjær TN, Baaré WFC, Didriksen M, Olsen L, Werge T, Mørup M, Siebner HR. 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome Is Associated With Impaired Auditory Steady-State Gamma Response. Schizophr Bull. 2018 doi: 0.1093/schbul/sbx058.
