The PsyCourse Study is a longitudinal deep-phenotyping study of patients with severe mental disorders across the Affective-to-Psychotic spectrum, including neurotypical individuals. From 2012 through 2019, we recruited N=1,786 participants across 20 clinical centers in Germany and Austria at up to four measurement points. Biomaterials collected at each measurement point were analyzed using genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic and proteomic techniques. In my talk, I will present our work on Executive Functions (EFs) in the PsyCourse Study. EFs, e.g., cognitive inhibition, are higher-order mental capacities that are crucial for self-regulation, and are impaired in psychiatric disorders. Using SNP array and smallRNAome sequencing data, we have found evidence for a genomic influence, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, on several aspects of EFs, including associated personality traits. Metadata of the PsyCourse Study are publicly described (doi.org/10.5282/ubm/data.199), and data can be obtained by bona fide scientists within the PsyCourse Open Science framework.

Biography: Dr. Urs Heilbronner is a senior researcher and the head of the Phenomics Group at the Institute for Psychiatric Phenomics and Genomics (IPPG) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich, Germany. His research focuses on identifying phenotypic markers and molecular signatures that cross traditional diagnostic boundaries in psychiatry. Through a systems-level approach, he investigates how genetic and environmental factors shape the trajectory and treatment outcomes of affective and psychotic disorders. Dr. Heilbronner has been instrumental in the design and analysis of the PsyCourse study, a large-scale longitudinal project integrating clinical, cognitive, genetic, and molecular data of patients from the affective-to-psychotic spectrum and healthy controls.

Selected Publications; H-index 35; Citations: 9162 (source: google scholar)

1. Genome-wide association study identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder; Nature Genetics; 2019 (PMID: 31043756)
2. Genomic Relationships, Novel Loci, and Pleiotropic Mechanisms across Eight Psychiatric Disorders; Cell; 2019 (PMID: 31835028)
3. Genome-wide association study of more than 40,000 bipolar disorder cases provides new insights into the underlying biology; Nature Genetics; 2021 (PMID: 34002096)
4. Lipid Alteration Signature in the Blood Plasma of Individuals With Schizophrenia, Depression, and Bipolar Disorder; JAMA psychiatry; 2023 (PMID: 36696101)
5. Genomics yields biological and phenotypic insights into bipolar disorder; Nature; 2025 (PMID: 39843750)
6. Integrative analysis of miRNA expression profiles reveals distinct and common molecular mechanisms underlying broad diagnostic groups of severe mental disorders; Molecular Psychiatry; 2025 (PMID: 40263528)

IPHYS contact person: Lalit Kaurani, Laboratory of Neuroepigenetics, lalit.kaurani@fgu.cas.cz