2026-01-13
108_ Identifying lipid alterations associated with psychopathological phenotypes (Amendment to 077)
Research Question and Aims
The nervous system is enriched in lipids and maintains a more diverse lipid composition in comparison to other tissues1. Present research has already shown an association of altered lipidomics with psychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia2,3,4,5. This highlights the significant clinical value to further research and identify lipid alterations associated with psychopathologic phenotypes. In this regard, we would like to examine associations of lipid alterations with deep-psychopathological phenotypes as we hypothesize that alterations of plasma lipids play a role in psychopathological phenotypes of individuals with psychiatric disorders in the PsyCourse Study. This will further aid in elucidating the question whether previously observed lipid alterations in individuals with severe psychiatric disorders are markers of state or trait, or both6.
Analytic Plan
We will use the plasma lipidomic data of individuals of the PsyCourse Study (n= 1320 clinical and 466 control participants) as well as the available deep-phenotyping information regarding psychopathology to identify associations between plasma lipids and psychopathological phenotypes. We will adjust the analyses for sex, age, diagnosis, duration of illness, age at onset, body mass index, medication use, PCAs as well as other relevant covariates in the context of repeated measures and linear mixed models. Lipid species known to be altered by fasting status according to Tkachev et al. will be discarded from all analyses. Analyses will be performed in R. LipidR7 as an analysis pipeline designed specifically for lipidomic data will also be employed, particularly for group comparisons as well as lipid class enrichment analyses. Since lipidomics data are available from different timepoints, we will select the phenotyping data that corresponds to the timepoint at which the sample was collected (V1 to V4), accordingly all relevant variables are listed below, however, we will not require all variables from all individuals.
Resources needed