Contact Details

Neuroimaging Research Group
University Medical Center Utrecht
Heidelberglaan 100
3584 CX Utrecht
the Netherlands

Room: A.00.2.38

Tel.: +31 (0)88 7559721
Fax.: +31 (0)88 7555466
E-mail: h.b.m.boos@umcutrecht.nl

Curriculum Vitae

Heleen Boos has studied Geestelijke Gezondheidkunde (Master of Mental Health) at the University of Maastricht. After she finished her Masters of Science, she worked on a researchproject at the University of Cambridge, which resulted in an MPhil degree. As she got more and more interested in structural imaging in schizophrenia, she started a PhD at the Department of Psychiatry and the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience at the University Medical Center Utrecht.

Current Research Projects

Studies have demonstrated that one can already find the expression of psychosis in the healthy relatives of patients with schizophrenia. This expression shows the phenotype of psychosis on a non-clinical/lower level than in schizophrenia, and is called schizotypy.
Siblings of patients with schizophrenia that share 50% of their genes have a higher level of schizotypy than people without first degree family members with schizophrenia. Whereas the lifetime risk for schizophrenia in the general population is around 1%, the risk in siblings and offspring is ten times higher than this.
Earlier research in schizophrenia shows abnormalities in specific areas of the brain, particularly in the frontal and temporal lobes, and in the third and lateral ventricles. Studies that have been performed in the siblings of psychotic patients support the hypothesis that core components of the vulnerability to schizophrenia include structural abnormalities in the brain. However, some of these findings are inconsistent since most projects have been using small amounts of subjects (in different states of illness) and different techniques. A meta-analysis has recently shown that first degree relatives of schizophrenia patients have decreased hippocampal and gray matter volumes and increased third ventricle volumes similar as found in patients, although less pronounced (Boos et al., 2007).
The study that we are working on at the moment is part of the GROUP project “Vulnerability and resilience in non-affective psychosis”. In this project we have scanned 183 siblings, 169 patients and 128 healthy control subjects. This will enable us to investigate endophenotypes in the development of non-affective psychosis in relation to brain morphology, the familial transmission of vulnerability and protective factors, and the association with specific genetic polymorphisms. Specific areas in the brains will be measured using volumetric and cortical thickness techniques on a 1.5 Tesla MRI system.

Promotor     :    Prof. Dr. R.S. Kahn
Co-promotor:    Dr. W. Cahn & Dr. N.E.M. Van Haren

List of Publications

• Brain volumes in relatives of patients with schizophrenia: a meta-analysis. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007 Mar;64(3):297-304.
• Assessment of insight in psychosis: a re-standardization of a new scale. Psychiatry Res. 2003 Jul 15; 119(1-2):81-8.