PhD position at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona funded by the TOUCH COFUND project

14 Mar 2024
Job Information

Organisation/Company

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB)

Research Field

Medical sciences

Researcher Profile

First Stage Researcher (R1)

Country

Spain

Application Deadline

30 Jun 2024 - 23:59 (Europe/Madrid)

Type of Contract

Temporary

Job Status

Full-time

Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

H2020 / Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND

Marie Curie Grant Agreement Number

101126533

Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

No

Offer Description

Topic: Improving psychosis risk detection through artificial intelligence.

A PhD position is available at the Research Group of Cognition and gender: implications for mental health - Department of Clinical and Health Psychology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in collaboration with Department of Mathematics Applied to ICT from the Polytechnic University of Madrid under the supervision of Ana Barajas Vélez (Clinical Psychology), Enrique Gutiérrez Álvarez (Algorithm design) and  José Blas Navarro Pastor (Methodology/Statistic). We are looking for a highly motivated candidate that will investigate intervention in youth at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis.

Early intervention in youth at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis is highly effective in preventing, delaying, or mitigating the impact of a chronic psychotic disorder. It is important to note that not all youth at CHR (approximately ⅓) will progress to psychosis, which poses a challenge for clinicians in determining appropriate interventions for each individual and regularly results in treatment delays of well over one year.

Help-seeking youth in the prodromal phase of a psychotic disorder can only receive tailored treatment once a diagnosis has been confirmed. If there is a delay in diagnosis, clinicians lose their ability to intervene early to ameliorate social, functional, and cognitive outcomes. Clinicians at mental health evaluation centers are concerned because the only tool they have to attempt to make such a confirmation prior to the first episode of psychosis has a specificity of only 30% (Miller et al., 2003). Researchers have tried to improve this number by demonstrating that The Story Game (Caplan and Sherman, 1989), which measures illogical thinking and language cohesion, can predict conversion to psychosis with a specificity of 70% (Bearden et al., 2011). However, that approach never made it into clinical practice. One root cause for that failure is that The Story Game takes approximately four hours of clinician time to administer and score. Accordingly, there is a need for a faster way to deliver and score The Story Game. If solved, this would improve specificity of detection of psychotic disorders from 30% to 70%. Likewise, it is expected that adequate detection of the risk of psychosis will allow achieving better indicators of well-being.

This proposal intends to build a scalable version of The Story Game that accomplishes automated measurement of illogical thinking and language cohesion. Responses to automated prompts will be collected via a simple microphone, a speech-to-text algorithm will then translate this into written text, and the resulting text will be processed using natural language processing (NLP) methods. This will result in a rapid diagnostic aid for clinicians at early psychosis centers who diagnose symptoms of adolescent psychological distress.

The successful candidate will be enrolled in the Clinical and Health Psychology doctoral program at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in the framework of the TOUCH project. TOUCH (“Towards the next generatiOn of excellent yoUng doctoral researchers on mental health by developing an intersectoral & transdisciplinary approaCH”) is a new excellent doctoral programme co-funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Actions of the European Commission and led by the UAB for the recruitment and training of 24 doctoral candidates in the field of mental health and wellbeing.

Research Group of Cognition and gender: implications for mental health is a multidisciplinary research group, which is made up of 7 psychologists, 3 psychiatrists and 1 metodologist/statistician.  In this proposal we will participate with subline COGnition & gENder: implications in PSYchotic spectrum disorders (COGen-PSY subgroup), which focuses on the characterization of psychotic spectrum disorders and their subclinical forms. Recently, the principal investigator of this subline (Dr. Ana Barajas) has started a collaboration with the research group lead to Dr. Enrique Gutiérrez, the Data Science group at MATIC in the Polytechnic University of Madrid in a project based on the improve of prediction of risk of psychosis using Artificial Intelligence Techniques such as Natural Language Processing. This collaboration is both robust and dynamic, with aspirations to broaden the research to encompass national and international projects. This expansion includes a commitment to enhancing the application of these technologies and methodologies to advance mental health diagnostics and therapeutic approaches. Both Dr. Gutiérrez and Dr. Barajas are integral to the progress of discussions within the research team. Their roles in this interdisciplinary collaboration are significant, merging clinical expertise with technological advancements. Their involvement in ongoing training sessions led by Dr. Rochelle Caplan, who is recognized for her linguistic assessment protocol for youth at risk of psychosis, highlights the depth of this partnership.

We are looking for candidates with an excellent CV, ahigh degree of ambition and motivation, and with good personal qualities to work in our Team. We offer a 3-year full-time contract (37,5 hours/week) and a gross salary of 2.375 €/month (the salary will be the same for the 3 years).

The candidates must fulfil the following eligibility criteria from the EC: Mobility rule: candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately preceding the deadline for the programme call. Experience rule: researchers must be doctoral candidates at the date of recruitment, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the deadline of the open calls. Researchers who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis but have not yet formally awarded the doctoral degree will not be considered eligible. Candidates must hold a degree that allows admission to the official doctoral programme at UAB.

Additional requirements for a stronger application are:

• Bachelor’s Health Sciences Degree
• Demonstrable experience in research methodology (clinical, epidemiological trials, cohorts, etc.)
• Intermediate-High level of English, in reading comprehension level and with the ability to write and communicate in a formal register.
• Mastery skills in Microsoft Office tools, especially Word, Excel and Power Point
• Mastery skills in SPSS statistical package.
• Knowledge of databases elaboration and management (elaborating and defining variables, debugging databases, etc.)
• Prior experience with programming languages relevant to data analysis and research (e.g. Python) will be considered.
• Capacity for teamwork

Interested applicants should apply through the TOUCH online platform by submitting a full CV, a motivation letter, two letters of recommendation and academic and English level certificates. The call will be open from the 1st of April to the 30th of June 2024. More information about the TOUCH project, the recruitment process, and the application platform are available on the TOUCH website .

 

Requirements

Research Field

Medical sciences

Education Level

Master Degree or equivalent

Languages

ENGLISH

Level

Excellent

Additional Information
Work Location(s)

Number of offers available

1

Company/Institute

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB)

Country

Spain

City

Bellaterra (Barcelona)

Geofield

Where to apply

Website

https://webs.uab.cat/touch/

Contact

State/Province

Barcelona

City

Cerdanyola del Vallés

Website

http://www.uab.cat

Street

Campus UAB

Postal Code

08193

E-Mail

[email protected]

STATUS: EXPIRED