Reinhard Heun

Reinhard Heun is a German psychiatrist and an academic. He is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Bonn.

Reinhard Heun
Born	Germany
Nationality	German
Citizenship	German
Occupation(s)	Psychiatrist and an academic
Academic background
Education	Baccalaureate Diploma in Biology (Biochemistry) Medical Doctorate Ph.D. in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Diploma in Management for Physicians B.Sc. in Mathematics
Academic work
Institutions	University of Bonn

Heun is known for his works on functional neuroimaging, genetic and epidemiological studies, and clinical trials for mental disorders, particularly dementia, depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety. He has received funding for his research from various institutions, including the German Research Foundation, and is a recipient of multiple Clinical Excellence Awards from the NHS Trust. His work has been published in leading academic journals, including Nature Genetics and Archives of General Psychiatry. Additionally, he is the Editor-in-Chief of Global Psychiatry Archives.

Education

Heun completed his Baccalaureate at Corvinianum Northeim in 1976, followed by a Diploma in Biology (Biochemistry) from the University of Göttingen in 1982. He obtained his Medical Doctorate from the University of Würzburg in 1985. In 1996, he completed his Habilitation in Psychiatry from the University of Mainz, followed by a Ph.D. in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy from the University of Bonn in 1999. In 2003, he received a Diploma in Management for Physicians from the University of Chur. Most recently, in 2023, he completed a B.Sc. in Mathematics from the Open University in the UK.

Career

Heun has held several academic appointments. From 2003 to 2010, he was an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in the School of Neurology, Neurobiology, and Psychiatry at the University of Newcastle. Concurrently, he served as an Honorary Reader in the Department of Psychology at the University of Durham from 2003 to 2008, and as chair and Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham from 2005 to 2008. Since 2002, he has been an associate professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Bonn.

Heun has held numerous administrative and professional appointments throughout his career. He began in the Department of Neurology at the University of Saarland from 1985 to 1987, and then moved to a similar role in the Department of Neurology at the University of Würzburg from 1988 to 1989. Following this, he transitioned to the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Mainz, where he worked from 1989 to 1995. Subsequently, from 1995 to 2002, he served as deputy director of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Bonn. In 2002, he briefly held the position of Head of the Department of Gerontopsychiatry and deputy director of the Centre for Social Psychiatry Bergstrasse, concluding this role in 2003. From 2003 to 2005, he continued his career in the UK as a Consultant Psychiatrist in General Adult and Community Psychiatry at the County Durham and Darlington Priority Services NHS Trust. From 2005 to 2008 he held the Chair of Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham, UK. Later, he joined the Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, serving as a full-time Consultant General Adult Psychiatrist from 2008 to 2017. Most recently, from 2021 to 2022, he served as Consultant in Adult Psychiatry at NHS Tayside. Additionally, he has led committees at various national and international institutions. Furthermore, he founded the Global Psychiatric Association and has been serving as its president since its inception.

Research

In his early research, he investigated whether familial risks for schizophrenia and affective disorders are distinct or overlapping. His findings suggested a potential familial link between schizophrenia and major depression, challenging the traditional view of separate genetic risks. His 2000 study examined plasma 24S-hydroxycholesterol as a potential biomarker for disrupted brain cholesterol homeostasis in Alzheimer's and vascular dementia patients, revealing elevated levels that correlated with ApoE genotype and dementia severity. In the following year, he evaluated the WHO-5 Well-Being Index as a valid tool for detecting depression in older adults, finding both versions effective, with the second version more specific for depression identification.

Through his 2006 study, Heun examined subjective memory impairment (SMI) and its correlation with reduced entorhinal cortex and hippocampal volumes, suggesting SMI as an early indicator of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease. Two years later, he explored the inconsistent definitions of Subjective Memory Impairment (SMI) in the elderly, proposing standardized criteria to enhance its predictive power for dementia and calling for further research and expert consensus on these definitions. Through his 2009 research, he co-authored a two-stage genome-wide association study of Alzheimer's disease, identifying significant associations with apolipoprotein E, clusterin, and phosphatidylinositol-binding clathrin assembly protein genes. It confirmed apolipoprotein E's role and revealed new loci potentially influencing Alzheimer's disease risk. In 2011, he collaborated with P. Hollingworth on a multi-stage genome-wide association study, identifying new Alzheimer's disease susceptibility loci (ABCA7, MS4A) and confirming others (CD2AP, CD33, EPHA1), thus enhancing the understanding of genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's. In 2017 the study he had contributed to identified three rare genetic variants linked to Alzheimer's risk, emphasizing that immune-related genetic factors, particularly in microglia, played a significant role in the disease's development.

Through a large-scale GWAS, Heun's 2019 paper identified genetic risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD), confirming 20 known loci, discovering five new ones, and highlighting pathways involving immunity, lipid metabolism, and APP processing. More recently in 2023, he examined the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, including PTSD, depression, and anxiety, among the Yazidi community following the 2014 ISIS invasion, highlighting the psychological impact of violence, persecution, and forced migration.

Awards and honors

• 1998 – Young Investigator Award, Association of European Psychiatrists
• 2003 – Fellow, Association of European Psychiatrists
• 2016 – National Clinical Excellence Award, United Kingdom

Selected articles

• Maier, W., Lichtermann, D., Minges, J., Hallmayer, J., Heun, R., Benkert, O., & Douglas, F. L. (1993). Continuity and discontinuity of affective disorders and schizophrenia: results of a controlled family study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50(11), 871–883.
• Harold, D., Abraham, R., Hollingworth, P., Sims, R., Gerrish, A., Hamshere, M. L., ... & Williams, J. (2009). Genome-wide association study identifies variants at CLU and PICALM associated with Alzheimer's disease. Nature genetics, 41(10), 1088–1093.
• Hollingworth, P., Harold, D., Sims, R., Gerrish, A., Lambert, J. C., Carrasquillo, M. M., ... & Mancuso, M. (2011). Common variants at ABCA7, MS4A6A/MS4A4E, EPHA1, CD33 and CD2AP are associated with Alzheimer's disease. Nature genetics, 43(5), 429–435.
• Sims, R., Van Der Lee, S. J., Naj, A. C., Bellenguez, C., Badarinarayan, N., Jakobsdottir, J., ... & Daniilidou, M. (2017). Rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3, and TREM2 implicate microglial-mediated innate immunity in Alzheimer's disease. Nature genetics, 49(9), 1373–1384.
• Kunkle, B. W., Grenier-Boley, B., Sims, R., Bis, J. C., Damotte, V., Naj, A. C., ... & Rotter, J. I. (2019). Genetic meta-analysis of diagnosed Alzheimer's disease identifies new risk loci and implicates Aβ, tau, immunity and lipid processing. Nature genetics, 51(3), 414–430.