Katja Ribbe

Date of birth
17.12.1979

Place of birth
Magdeburg, Germany

EDUCATION

Katja Ribbe

College / University
10/2000-06/2007 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Degree
Diploma of Psychology

Major Subjects
Clinical Psychology
Psychosomatics

PROJECTS / RESEARCH

Title of PhD project: "Alcohol use in schizophrenia and the role of genetic variants in the corticotropin releasing system"

Schizophrenia is one of the most severe psychiatric diseases. The etiology of schizophrenia is highly complex, involving both genetic and environmental risk factors in multiple combinations. Among the environmental risk factors, drug abuse in general, and cannabis consumption in particular, play a key role. The disease-driving mechanisms explaining the deleterious cannabis effects, and the genetic-environmental interplay, however, are far from being understood. In order to get better insight into these complex interactions, we created a unique database (GRAS - Göttingen Research Association for Schizophrenia) of >1000 well-characterised living patients from all over Germany, available for follow-up. This database of as yet unprecedented detail was generated with a huge clinical effort by an invariant team of physicians and psychologists, and ultimately contains standardised phenotypic characterisation with >3000 data points per patient. Patient data include education, disease history, family history, environmental risk factors (e.g. cannabis consumption, other drugs of abuse), comorbid disorders, neurological symptoms, cognitive functioning, psychopathology and medication. In my PhD thesis, this database will be exploited to investigate the relative contribution of cannabis consumption (dependent on age of consumption start, lifetime dose etc) in association with genetic predisposition to the time point of disease onset and to disease severity (e.g. cognition). As risk/protective candidate genes, polysialyltransferase II (ST8SiaII), important for early neuronal network formation, or brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) have been selected.

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS AND GOALS

• clinical psychology and psychiatry, esp. schizophrenia and addiction

• therapy outcome research

SOURCE OF FUNDING

MPIEM work contract

PUBLICATIONS

Begemann M*, Klaus S*, Papiol S, Malzahn D, Krampe H, Ribbe K, Friedrichs H, Radyushkin KA, El-Kordi A, Benseler F, Hannke K, Sperling S, Schwerdtfeger D, Thanhäuser I, Gerchen MF, Ghorbani M, Gutwinski S, Hilmes C, Leppert R, Ronnenberg A, Sowislo J, Stawicki S, Stödtke M, Szuszies C, Reim K, Riggert J, Falkai P, Bickeböller H, Nave KA, Brose N, Ehrenreich H (2009). Complexin2 gene polymorphisms modify cognitive performance in schizophrenia, submitted.

Krampe H, Stawicki S, Ribbe K, Wagner T, Bartels C, Kroener-Herwig B, Ehrenreich H (2008). Development of an outcome prediction measure for alcoholism therapy by multimodal monitoring of treatment processes. J Psychiatr Res 43: 30-47

POSTER PRESENTATION

Ribbe K*, Friedrichs H*, Hilmes C, Begemann M, Gerchen MF, Ghorbani M, Gutwinski S, Hannke K, Klaus S, Krampe H, Leppert R, Mielke A, Papiol S, Sperling S, Stawicki S, Stödtke M, J.Sowislo, C.Szuszies, and H.Ehrenreich. (2008)The Data Collection of GRAS (Göttingen Research Association for Schizophrenia): Multi-Center Cross-Sectional Schizophrenia Study. Robert-Sommer-Symposium, 07.-08. Nov. 2008 in Giessen, Germany