ResilNet – better understanding vulnerability and resilience in psychiatry and neuroscience.
ResilNet is a research network dedicated to understanding why some people maintain or regain mental health after adversity, while others develop lasting problems. Environmental stressors – from early-life adversities to major life events in adulthood – can strongly shape mental health trajectories, but the ability to adapt and recover plays a decisive role in determining outcomes. ResilNet’s goal is to identify the mechanisms that support this capacity for resilience, as well as the risk and protective factors that influence these mechanisms and, in turn, mental health.
At the core of ResilNet is the brain, viewed as a key hub where genetic influences, environmental exposures, cognitive processes, and behaviour interact. Structural and functional brain networks are closely linked to individual differences in cognition, behaviour, and mental health, yet they have rarely been studied explicitly as markers of resilience or vulnerability. ResilNet aims to address these through a transdiagnostic, multi-level approach.
In six work packages, ResilNet combines large existing datasets with newly collected data to both replicate and extend findings, applying advanced analytic methods such as machine learning, network analysis, and twin and gene-environment modelling. Multiple levels of analysis are examined across different resilience constructs: outcome-based, psychological, and genetic parameters.
Cohorts include individuals with subclinical and clinical manifestations of affective, schizophrenia-spectrum, and autism-spectrum disorders, as well as healthy individuals exposed to recent traumatic events.By integrating these perspectives, ResilNet seeks to uncover core mechanisms and moderators of resilience. In the longer term, the project aims to improve mental health risk stratification, enable earlier identification of vulnerable individuals, and inform the development of scalable, resilience-focused interventions with meaningful impact on clinical care, public health, and society more broadly.