Research into why some people are more emotionally resilient in the face of adversity than others has won a Sydney medical researcher two national awards.<\/p>\n
Dr Justine Gatt has received the $50,000 Commonwealth Health Minister\u2019s Award for\u00a0Excellence in Health and Medical Research for her research into the role of emotional\u00a0resilience to adversity in optimal mental health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n
Tonight (June 11), Dr Gatt will also receive a National Health and Medical Research\u00a0Council Research Excellence Award for being the top-ranked Career Development\u00a0Fellowship scheme applicant in the Industry category.<\/p>\n
Dr Gatt, who is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney and conducts her\u00a0ground-breaking research at the Westmead Millennium Institute\u2019s Brain Dynamics\u00a0Centre, aims to promote resilience in low-resilient individuals using e-health online\u00a0training tools.<\/p>\n
Using a trans-disciplinary approach that spans genetics, neuroimaging, psychology and\u00a0psychiatry in a large cohort of twins, her research aims to understand the\u00a0psychobiological basis of resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cResilience is the flip-side of mental illness and by adopting this innovative approach in\u00a0neurogenetics, we hope to develop a new framework by which we can understand\u00a0mental health and promote it in the general population,\u201d said Dr Gatt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
By comparing identical to non-identical twins, Dr Gatt hopes to be able to define the\u00a0relative contribution of genetics versus environment in these processes. By looking at\u00a0the DNA samples of these twins, she will start to identify the actual genes that may\u00a0underscore resilience and moderate how people respond to positive and negative life
\nexperiences.<\/p>\n\u201cThe question is how much of our resilience to adversity is determined by the genes we\u00a0inherit from our parents, and how much is determined by our positive and negative life\u00a0experiences during childhood and adulthood,\u201d said Dr Gatt.<\/p>\n
Her ultimate aim is to develop personalised strategies, including \u201cbrain-training\u201d that\u00a0promote mental wellbeing.<\/p>\n
“Understanding resilience is the first step towards personalised health solutions. It\u00a0provides the capacity to identify the profile of features that could be nurtured in lowresilient\u00a0individuals in order to prevent psychiatric illness,\u201d said Dr Gatt.<\/p>\n
“Resilience bio-signatures that are sensitive and specific could be derived and used as a\u00a0diagnostic phenotype for predicting risk for developing mental illness following trauma.”<\/p>\n
With these e-health \u201cbrain training\u201d tools, Dr Gatt hopes to target both children and\u00a0adults, but particularly adolescents who are undergoing a critical period in brain\u00a0development and who are most vulnerable to develop mental health problems.\u00a0\u201cWe are exploring these personalised online tools to promote resilience as they are fun
\nto use and are anonymous,\u201d said Dr Gatt.<\/p>\n\u201cThey can be tailored to children or adults, and will be accessible to anyone in the\u00a0general public.\u201d<\/p>\n
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