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EPIGENETIC-GENETIC-MENTAL HEALTH CASCADE BASED PERSONALISED PREVENTION OF NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASE IN ADOLESCENTS DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM (ETHEREAL)

Project description

Personalised prevention of mental health disorders

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological condition that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn and behave. Individuals with ASD are more vulnerable to developing mental health disorders and other non-communicable diseases, necessitating the development of evidence-based interventions. To prevent mental health disorders in individuals with ASD, the EU-funded ETHEREAL project proposes to look into the biological processes on an individual basis. The consortium will develop a quantitative modelling approach that integrates epigenetic, genetic and metabolic data. This personalised service will offer evidence-based guidance on how to control environmental factors that may impact the mental health of individuals with ASD.

Objective

"Five Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and Mental Health Disorders (MHD) account for 86% deaths and 77% disease burden in the WHO Europe region. Of these five NCDs, MHD is unique as it has a complex bi-directional relationship with the other four major NCDs, meaning that, on one hand, it could be the initiator of the other NCDs, or other NCDs could lead to MHD which, in turn, can further aggravate the primary NCD leading to a vicious circle. Recent research identified MHD as the highest ranked NCD in adolescent population. A specific group in this population that is 3 - 6 times more vulnerable for developing MHD and subsequent NCD is the adolescents diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
There is no Evidence Based Intervention (EBI) for preventing MHD in an ASD adolescent since 1) the major risk factors are in-grained in their biological process and 2) they present with multiple MHD comorbidity. Personalisation is the key to prevent their already vulnerable mental states making transition to an MHD - ""which"" EBI is appropriate for ""which"" ASD adolescent and ""how"" to choose it - an unsolved question. Because of their neurobiological characteristics, personalisation must be done at biological level.
Recent research showed how the environmental factors can alter gene expressions that leads to an MHD through Epigenetic-Genetic/metabolomic-Mental health (EGM) process. Using quantitative modelling of this process, ETHREAL will develop a personalised, flexible, single service delivery model that will empower an ASD adolescent to self-control their environmental factors while seamlessly accessing the community care services to prevent their mental health making transition to an MHD - a unique solution for sustainable prevention of MHD and subsequent NCDs in this population. Without loss of generality, the proposed solution could be adapted to prevent MHD in wider adolescent population."

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-HLTH-2022-DISEASE-07

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Coordinator

ORTHOKEY ITALIA SRL
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 492 923,60
Address
PIAZZA NAZIONI UNITE 15
54033 Carrara Ms
Italy

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Centro (IT) Toscana Massa-Carrara
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 685 423,60

Participants (4)

Partners (2)

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