What We Do
Biorepository for Psychiatric Research
The NIMH Repository and Genomics Resource (NRGR) is one of several data repositories funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH). We are the only NIH repository that specializes in offering the research community DNA, RNA, and cell lines from large collections of individuals with psychiatric illness and psychiatrically normal controls. At a minimum we provide basic demographic and diagnostic data on all our biospecimens; for most of our biospecimens we have detailed diagnostic data, frequently item level data on major assessment instruments, available for download. We also have genotype, DNA sequence, and gene expression data associated with a subset of our biospecimens.
Different data repositories specialize in managing different types of data, and data from a single individual may be deposited into multiple different repositories. The NIH, guided by the new strategic plan for data science, is working to optimize integration between repositories to maximize the utility of all collected data, but currently researchers may need to navigate several additional repositories to obtain all available data on a given subject:
- The NIMH Data Archive (NDA) holds clinical, imaging, and neurosignal data on subjects from a wide range of NIMH studies, but only a fraction of the studies in the NDA are in the NRGR, as the NDA includes very many studies without a genetic component.
- The database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP) is an NIH-wide repository of phenotypic and genomic data, but only a fraction of the studies in dbGAP are in the NRGR, as dbGAP includes many studies that are not related to psychiatric illness.
- The CommonMind Consortium Knowledge Portal provides sequencing and expression data from postmortem brain samples from donors with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and controls with no psychiatric illness. While biomaterials from these subjects are not available at the NRGR, researchers can apply for access to these data through the NRGR.
- The PsychENCODE Knowledge Portal provides data on non-coding regulatory elements and epigenetic modifications from subjects with psychiatric illness and controls, primarily from studies of postmortem brain samples. While biomaterials from these subjects are not available at the NRGR, researchers can apply for access to these data through the NRGR.