This is the 3rd time for such a joint lab symposium. The previous two symposia were held in Hong Kong Castle Peak Hospital. The main theme of this year symposium was on the future outlook for mental disorders, particularly in schizophrenia. Both team members from the Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience (NACN) Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, and the Hong Kong Castle Peak Hospital shared their updated research findings on mental disorders, particularly schizophrenia. During this symposium, Dr. Raymond Chan had given an overview of the NACN Lab research programme on schizophrenia, including endophenotypes for schizophrenia spectrum disorders and corresponding brain imaging findings in this clinical group and at-risk individuals. Dr. Eric Cheung from Castle Peak Hospital also updated the mainland colleagues on their first-episode psychosis programme using endophenotypes approach. Team members from both labs also presented their findings on at-risk individuals with schizotypy traits (Dr. Wangyi), unaffected first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients (Dr. Karen Hung), social cognition of first-episode schizophrenia (Dr. Karen Ho), and patients with ketamine abuse (Drs. Amy Yeung and Ricky Tung). Dr. Simon Lui from the Hong Kong Castle Peak Hospital Early Psychosis Programme also attended and shared his experiences of running the early psychosis programme. All presenters and attendants then started off a very fruitful discussion on schizophrenia spectrum disorders and substance abuse disorders and explored future research potential on this area. In summary, this symposium was held successfully and has achieved the main aim to facilitate and strengthen the existing collaboration between both sites, and started off potential work on longitudinal study of schizophrenia. 
Fig. A group photo for the presenters and attendants of the joint lab symposium |
