Clara Moreau

Please join us on Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 2:00 PM, for the next CIC Imaging Series.

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Speaker

Clara Moreau
Assistant Professor

Biography

Clara Moreau has a transdisciplinary background that integrates neuroscience, genetics, psychology, and bioinformatics. This unique combination of disciplines has enabled her to tackle fundamental psychiatric problems from innovative perspectives. Nonetheless, her primary expertise lies in neuroimaging. Clara Moreau has more than 10 years of experience in the use of structural, functional, and diffusion MRI, acquired in renowned imaging laboratories such as MNI (McGill, Montreal), the Imaging Genetics Center (USC, Los Angeles), and Neurospin (Saclay).

Title

Combining neuroimaging and genomic approaches to dissect biological mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental conditions.

Abstract

For decades, neuroimaging research in psychiatry has struggled to identify reliable biomarkers, hindered by challenges related to reproducibility, heterogeneity, and clinical utility. This talk will examine the key reasons behind these limitations, including methodological constraints and the complex genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders. We will present an alternative multi-scale framework designed to enhance the robustness and clinical utility of neuroimaging findings in psychiatry. This approach integrates genetics-first strategies to identify biologically meaningful imaging phenotypes, applies dimensional and transdiagnostic analyses, and leverages multiverse methods to systematically test analytical choices. By combining these strategies, we aim to move beyond traditional case-control comparisons and toward a deeper understanding of brain-behavior relationships in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions.