Congratulations to Charles LAÏDI, psychiatrist and lecturer-researcher at the IMRB in the JAMAIN/LEBOYER team, on being awarded an ERC Starting Grant.

The cerebellum is a part of the brain that contains more than half of its neurons, even though it accounts for only 10% of brain volume. Long considered to be an area involved solely in regulating fine motor skills, the cerebellum plays a similar role in optimizing higher cognitive processes. The cerebellum is affected in psychiatric disorders, and patients with cerebellar damage (due to stroke or tumor, for example) may develop psychiatric symptoms.

 

For several years, Charles LAÏDI has been studying how the anatomy of the cerebellum is altered in psychiatric disorders and linked to higher cognitive processes.

 

The objective of the ERC CLOVIS* project is to develop new treatments using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to improve negative symptoms (social withdrawal, emotional blunting, loss of pleasure, etc.) and cognitive symptoms (working memory, cognitive flexibility, etc.) in psychiatric disorders. The originality of this project lies in its use of a transdiagnostic approach, i.e., targeting symptoms that are present in several psychiatric disorders rather than using the usual diagnostic categories such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

 

Charles LAÏDI and his team will use brain MRI to identify patients likely to benefit from these new treatments and define individualized targeting. This approach aims to offer precision psychiatry (PEPR Propsy) to find the right treatment for the right person and avoid resorting to a trial and error strategy.

 

Using electrophysiological measurements and the world’s most powerful MRI scanner (11.7 Tesla MRI located at Neurospin CEA Saclay), CLOVIS* also aims to study the mechanisms of brain stimulation with unprecedented precision.

 

*CLOVIS (CerebeLlar nOn inVasIve Stimulation) is led by the University of Paris-Est Créteil. Its partners are Neurospin (CEA Paris-Saclay), Henri-Mondor University Hospital (AP-HP), the Mondor Institute for Biomedical Research (IMRB), the Fondamental Foundation, and the PEPR ProPsy program. The total amount is €1.5 million and the project is funded for five years.

 

 

Biography

Charles LAÏDI is a psychiatrist and doctor of neuroscience. He is currently a hospital-university practitioner at Henri Mondor University Hospital in Créteil (AP-HP and Paris-Est Créteil University) and a researcher at the Mondor Institute for Biomedical Research (IMRB, UPEC, Inserm in Créteil) within the Translational Neuropsychiatry team led by Prof. Marion LEBOYER. Together with Pauline FAVRE, he co-directs a psychiatric imaging research group at the Neurospin center, CEA, Saclay.

After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Child Mind Institute in New York, he created a brain stimulation unit at Henri-Mondor University Hospital, which he currently heads. He is a member of the Fondamental Foundation and is responsible for the brain imaging component of the FRENCH-MINDS cohort (PEPR Propsy). The goal of his research is to discover new treatments for psychiatric disorders using neuroimaging and brain stimulation.