Dr. Melvin McInnis, the Prechter Program's research director, recently traveled to Beirut, Lebanon to meet with collaborators from the Faculty of Health Sciences of University of Balamand and the Institute for Development, Research, Advocacy, and Applied Care (IDRAAC). Dr. McInnis spent three days meeting with researchers and clinicians to kick off the PRIORI (Predicting Individual Outcomes for Rapid Intervention) collaborative project between the Prechter Program and Beirut.
The goals of this project are to establish the feasibility of collecting data in the Middle East and to compare speech and behavior patterns collected from smartphones used by individuals with bipolar disorder in Lebanon and in south-east Michigan. In this research study, we are looking for common speech and behavioral patterns across cultures that associate with and predict risk for developing episodes of mania and depression.
This project is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health as part of its resource building commitment for research using mobile technology between the USA and low/middle income countries.
The Prechter Program's PRIORI project is jointly led by Melvin McInnis, M.D. (University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry) and Emily Mower Provost, Ph.D. (University of Michigan Computer Science and Engineering); the IDRAAC team is led by Elie Karam, M.D.