IMI projects feature in new brochure on the brain and digital technologies
June 2019

IMI projects are among those featured in a new brochure on how the digital revolution is transforming EU-funded brain research. The brochure, produced by CORDIS, was published to coincide with IMI’s Stakeholder Forum on the same subject. The IMI projects featured are AETIONOMY, EU-AIMS and PRISM. AETIONOMY systematically captures and represents knowledge on neurodegenerative diseases in a computable format that represents causes and effects and that can be analysed using algorithms. EU-AIMS has developed a large autism database, one of the richest of its kind in the world, which has the potential to drastically change the knowledge base for autism. Finally, PRISM has developed a new framework that would help researchers better understand the complexity of neuropsychiatric illness, moving away from current reductive disease classifications, to pave the way for new treatments.

• Read the brochure

PRISM clinical study on social withdrawal gets underway
September 2017

The PRISM project’s clinical study on the biological underpinnings of social withdrawal in Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia is now officially underway, as the first patients have had their first clinical visits.### Social withdrawal is a common early symptom of both Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. However, we do not know if the underlying causes of social withdrawal in the two diseases are the same or different. In this study, PRISM scientists will study over 200 people, including people with suspected Alzheimer’s disease, people with schizophrenia, and healthy people (the control group). Participants with the diseases under study will include people who show signs of social withdrawal as well as people who do not. Participants will undergo a range of tests, including brain scans, blood tests and questionnaires. They will also be offered the opportunity to use a smartphone app called BeHapp that measures people’s sociability and social exploration in their daily lives. ‘The ability to precisely link symptoms to underlying neurobiology would not only facilitate the development of better treatments, it would also allow physicians to provide patients and relatives with a better understanding of the complexities and management of their illness,’ said the project. ‘Moreover, there is a growing realisation that psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders overlap by much more than previously thought, and that they may better be described as domains of trans-diagnostic traits rather than separable categories.’