MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of conditions which are caused by an alteration in the development of the nervous system. Intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorder and many forms of epilepsy are caused by disturbances in the typical programme of brain development. Even psychosis and related disorders, which typically emerge later in life, are thought to have a developmental origin. Developmental brain disorders often cause life-long disability and current treatments, at best, are merely palliative.

Brain development is a highly orchestrated process directed by genetic information and influenced by many environmental factors. The human brain develops over two decades, a very substantial part of our life. During that time, the brain grows from a microscopic structure to a remarkable organ that enables us to interact with the physical world, communicate, learn and imagine the unknown. Alterations in this very protracted program result in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Developmental brain disorders arise through a combination of genetic and environmental (non-genetic) influences. Research over the past decade has shown that genetic changes are the most important risk factor for developmental brain disorders, independently of whether they manifest early in life, such as autism spectrum disorder or only become clinically detectable in young adults, such as psychosis. Recent advances in human genetics have identified specific mutations with these disorders. Unfortunately, we still do not understand how these mutations and concomitant environmental insults cause neurodevelopmental disorders.

When the Centre was established five years ago, our vision was to build a world-class Centre at King's College London with research programmes that will transform our understanding of the origin of neurodevelopmental disorders. We have created a research environment in which we are effectively dissolving some of the boundaries preventing our progress, such as the lack of interaction between basic and clinical scientists and between clinical specialists working on different but related disorders. At the core of our strategy is an innovative PhD Programme that is training a new generation of scientists with the skills to comfortably work across basic and clinical research settings and sustain collaborations across groups.

The crucial limitation for the design of new medicines for neurodevelopmental disorders continues to be our insufficient understanding of the changes that occur in the brain of affected individuals. In the next five years, the main focus of our efforts will remain the exploration of the biological mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders. In the long term, we aim to translate the new knowledge into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals and their families, in collaboration with industrial partners, other research centres and patient associations.

The MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders brings together world-leading researchers in psychiatry, neonatology, neurology and neuroscience with the goal of identifying the biological mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders. To this end, we are using genetic discoveries that are becoming available through the work of large sequencing consortia to guide our interrogation of specific brain circuits in humans, cellular and animal models. In addition, we are using our unique at-risk cohorts to link risk factors with developmental outcomes, which are subsequently modelled in cellular and animal studies.

Our research focusses on epilepsy, autism and schizophrenia, a spectrum of diseases caused by abnormal brain development. They exhibit a broad range of clinical manifestations, but their overlapping phenotypes and genetics are suggestive of common deficits. These conditions have high prevalence, often cause life-long burden, and are very difficult to treat. This research focus is further justified by our world-leading clinical expertise in this field, the access to large patient populations, and our existing high-profile research programmes on neurodevelopment.

Over the next five years, we will continue to focus on the identification of novel biological mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders. The collaboration between basic and clinical scientists and between clinical scientists working across different disciplines will remain at the core of our strategy. This is entrenched through a very successful PhD programme in translational neurodevelopment which is training a new generation of scientists to comfortably work across basic and clinical research settings. We expect that our work will ultimately lead to new approaches for the stratification of clinical populations as well as new treatments for neurodevelopmental disorders.