Universitetet I Oslo
NORMENT – KG Jebsen Center for Mental Disorders Research

Faculty of Medicine

Oslo University Hospital HF
Division of Mental Health and Addiction
Psychosis Research Unit/TOP
Ullevål Hospital, Building 49
P.O. Box 4956 Nydalen
N- 0424 Oslo
Norway

 

Website

Project Leader

Prof. Ole A. Andreassen
Phone: +47 23 02 73 50 / +47 22 11 78 43
Fax: +47 23 02 73 33

Project Staff

 

Prof. Ingrid Agartz Project investigator E-mail
Ass. Prof. Lars T. Westlye Project investigator E-mail
Prof. Ingrid Melle Core Researcher in NORMENT E-mail
Prof. Vidar Martin Steen Core Researcher in NORMENT E-mail
Prof. Srdjan Djurovic Core Researcher in NORMENT E-mail
Prof. Kenneth Hugdahl Core Researcher in NORMENT E-mail
Prof. Stephanie le Hellard Core Researcher in NORMENT E-mail
Prof. Kjetil Sundet, head of institute Core Researcher in NORMENT E-mail
Kristin Myklebust Network coordinator E-mail

 

Institute presentation

NORMENT was established in 2013, as a centre of excellence. NORMENT’s research profile is built upon a collaboration between University of Oslo (host institution), University of Bergen and Oslo University Hospital. It is integrated with the KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research.

 

In Search of Underlying Pathology

 

At NORMENT – KG Jebsen Centre we strive to find answers to why some people develop perceptual disturbances, delusions, deep depressions or elated, manic phases, the core symptoms of severe mental illness.

The symptoms of schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BIP) and their high heritability have been known since antiquity. Still, the disease mechanisms are mostly unknown and the current descriptive diagnoses lack reliable biomarkers.

Psychotic disorders inflict burdens at the emotional, social and financial levels for the individual patients, their families and the society. It is thus imperative to make progress in our understanding of the underlying pathology of these disorders, and factors related to clinical outcome.

 

The Missing Heritability

 

Important and encouraging developments have occurred during the last years, with findings of true genetic susceptibility factors and the emergence of new and exciting tools for psychiatric research.

Major technical developments have enabled systematic studies of the human genome and brain with ever more sophisticated methods, as well as knowledge about environmental risk factors. Still most genetic factors remain unknown (“the missing heritability”), abnormal interactions between different brain regions (neuronal networks) are undiscovered, and predictors of outcome are scarce.

 

A Multi-Disciplinary Expertise

 

At NORMENT KG Jebsen Centre we will build upon our well established and integrated thematically oriented research organization, to benefit from our multi-disciplinary expertise and large clinical samples with extensive clinical phenotype characterization and state-of-the-art experimental and neuroimaging methods.