Outi Linnaranta (Mantere), MD, PhD

Outi Mantere Linnaranta

Contact

 outi.linnaranta@thl.fi

 

6875 Boulevard Lasalle
Montréal, QC
H4H 1R3

Chercheuse associée, Centre de recherche Douglas

 

Outi Linnaranta, previously Mantere, works at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Canada. Outi has a training of a clinical psychiatrist in the University of Helsinki in Finland, where she also completed a PhD in psychiatry. She has been involved in planning and conducting several epidemiological longitudinal studies. The results of these studies provide knowledge on factors increasing mortality among people with a psychiatric disorder. Most importantly, these include suicidality and simultaneous metabolic changes. Dysregulated immune system, glucose and lipid metabolism, and rest activity rhythm are a focus of most of her recent publications. The team also plans intervention studies to correct these changes.

A novel line of research is in digital psychiatry. We are exploring feasibility and utility of using recent technological innovations in psychiatry. Among these are symptom monitoring using self-evaluations and mobile apps, and virtual reality treatments. As one component of this project we want to implement tools that are culture sensitive or neutral to linguistic effect, and thus, suitable for the multicultural environment in Quebec.

 

Dr. Linnaranta has previous experience in research but also in clinical and administrative work in Finland (Department of Psychiatry, Helsinki University Central Hospital, and National Institute of Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland). She has focused on better recognition and characterization of severe mental disorders. In Finland, she had a rigorous training in epidemiology by prof. Erkki Isometsä and was introduced to biological research by professor Jaana Suvisaari and her international collaborators from the field of diabetes and immunology. She had a Post Doctoral training in London with Rudolf Uher and Peter McGuffin as hosts and studied statistics of causal associations. Dr. Linnaranta has actively collaborated especially in across medical specialties and in translational research. Starting from August 2015, she has worked as an independent researcher at Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, Canada.

Dr. Linnaranta has a training of a clinical psychiatrist, psychotherapist and in administration in the University of Helsinki in Finland, where she also completed a PhD in psychiatry. She has been involved in planning and conducting several epidemiological longitudinal studies. The results of these studies provide knowledge on factors increasing mortality among people with mood disorders, early psychosis, and eating disorders. Most importantly, increased mortality is due to increased suicidality and cardiovascular disorders accompanying psychiatric illness. The most cited papers describe how suicidality accumulatively increases according to the time patients have depressive and mixed episodes, and we were invited to write an editorial on the topic in the Bipolar Disorders 2018. We were among the first to describe white matter changes in the brain of mood disorder patients. We recently received a prize for the most cited paper of the year 2018 in the journal Psychiatry Research for the paper on gut microbiota. In this paper, we show how gut microbiota play a role in the outcome of patients with early psychosis. Additionally, we have several publications where we describe the characteristics and results from a systematic innate immunity response in early psychosis. We are currently publishing work where we describe a high prevalence and clinical correlates of dysregulated rest:activity rhythm in bipolar disorders and eating disorders. We use actigraphy devices and modern data collection and processing methods. The future lines of research will be in digital psychiatry and interventions.

Dr. Linnaranta is an editor for BMC Psychiatry and has been a reviewer for numerous international journals. In addition to having a training as a psychotherapist she has worked as a mentor and supervisor to numerous students.