Brazilian High Risk Cohort (BHRC)
Brazilian High Risk Cohort Study for Childhood Psychiatric Disorders
Longitudinal brain MRI with psychiatric, cognitive and genetic data from Brazilian school children enriched for risk of mental disorders, followed to study how psychiatric problems develop. 1,321 young people scanned in up to four waves from 2010 to 2025.
Overview
The Brazilian High Risk Cohort Study (BHRC) follows 2,511 children and their families recruited through schools in São Paulo and Porto Alegre since 2010. A screening of 9,937 children at 57 schools was used to draw a random community subsample (958) and a high-risk subsample (1,554) selected for psychiatric symptoms and family history of mental disorders. Part of the cohort was scanned with MRI at baseline and at follow-ups, and the imaging data can be linked to psychiatric assessments, cognition and genetic data. Data are shared to approved research proposals.
Composition
The imaging sample covers 1,321 probands with at least one scan: 743 at Wave 0 (2010 to 2012, mean age 10.7), 466 at Wave 1 (2014 to 2016), 418 at Wave 2 (2018 to 2020) and 828 at Wave 3 (2023 to 2025, mean age 24.0). Of the 1,321, 710 are male and 611 female, 787 come from the high-risk subsample and 534 from the random subsample. Lifetime diagnoses from the DAWBA interview include anxiety disorders (457), depression (374) and ADHD (267). Wave 3 also scanned parents of the probands, who are not counted here.
Acquisition
Waves 0 to 2 were scanned at two sites, INRAD in São Paulo and Hospital Dom Vicente Scherer in Porto Alegre, on 1.5 T scanners; the design paper names a 1.5 T General Electric scanner for baseline. These waves include a 3D T1-weighted image, diffusion MRI and resting-state fMRI, plus magnetization transfer images in Waves 0 and 1 and FLAIR in Wave 2. Wave 3 used 3 T scanners at four sites and acquired T1w, T2w, three resting-state runs, movie and eye-tracking calibration task fMRI and field maps. The data are organized in BIDS, converted with dcm2niix and defaced with mideface. fMRIPrep, FreeSurfer and MRIQC derivatives are provided for structural and functional scans.
Known limitations
- Only a subset of the cohort was invited to imaging in Waves 0 to 2, so the scanned sample shrinks and then grows across waves.
- Field strength, sites and protocols changed between Waves 0 to 2 and Wave 3.
- Diffusion, magnetization transfer and FLAIR images are released raw only.
- The vendor of the Wave 1 to 3 scanners is not stated in the sources.
- The Data Transfer Agreement text is not public, so permitted uses cannot be checked before applying.
Cohort
Aggregate numbers from the sources below. Bars are relative to the 1,321 subjects.
Sex
- Female 611 46%
- Male 710 54%
Section 10.2, Demographic Characteristics table, Overall in BHRC Research Data Guide, chapter 10 BHRC neuroimaging data (last updated March 16, 2026)
Field strength
- 3 T 828 63%
Sections 10.2 and 10.3.2 in BHRC Research Data Guide, chapter 10 BHRC neuroimaging data (last updated March 16, 2026)
Country
- Brazil 1,321 100%
Section 10.2, Demographic Characteristics table, State in BHRC Research Data Guide, chapter 10 BHRC neuroimaging data (last updated March 16, 2026)
Age
mean 23.3 ± 2.6, median 23.5
No age bins reported.
Section 10.2, Demographic Characteristics table, Overall in BHRC Research Data Guide, chapter 10 BHRC neuroimaging data (last updated March 16, 2026)
Condition
Groups can overlap
- Anxiety disorder 457 35%
- Major depressive disorder 374 28%
- ADHD 267 20%
- Post-traumatic stress disorder 104 8%
- Eating disorder 61 5%
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder 41 3%
- Bipolar disorder 22 2%
- Psychotic disorder 5 <1%
Section 10.2.2, Lifetime column in BHRC Research Data Guide, chapter 10 BHRC neuroimaging data (last updated March 16, 2026)
License and access
Our reading of the license, not legal advice. Before you use the data, read the original license and confirm that your use is allowed. We take no responsibility for how you use a dataset. Full disclaimer
A research proposal is reviewed and approved
Researchers register on the BHRC data portal with an institutional email, submit a proposal naming the variables they need, and after approval by the review committee have a Data Transfer Agreement signed by their institution. Access lasts one year and can be renewed. The BIDS imaging dataset is requested in the proposal's "Additional Data Needs" section.
No published license or data use terms
The data holder has published no license and no data use terms. Any use, sharing or commercial right has to be agreed with the data holder, and nothing can be assumed to be allowed. Default copyright and data protection law still apply.
Access is governed by a Data Transfer Agreement that approved applicants download from the portal. Its text is not published, and neither the portal nor the OSF project states a license for the data.
What you can do
- Commercial use Not stated
- Not stated
- Train ML models Not stated
- Create derived data Not stated
- Publish results Not stated
What you can share
- Share the data Not stated
- Share derived data Not stated
- Share trained models Not stated
What you must do
- Cite or credit Not stated
- Share alike Not stated
- Sign an agreement Not stated
- Ethics approval Not stated
- Manuscript review Not stated
- Release code Not stated
- Return results Not stated
- Delete after use Not stated
Limits
- No re-identification Not stated
- Location limits Not stated
Citation
Salum GA, Gadelha A, Pan PM, et al. High risk cohort study for psychiatric disorders in childhood: rationale, design, methods and preliminary results. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research 24(1):58-73 (2015). doi:10.1002/mpr.1459
Sources
Every number on this page comes from one of these documents. Each chart names the table or page it is taken from. The raw numbers are in stats.csv.