Periodic Reporting for period 1 - environMENTAL (Reducing the impact of major environmental challenges on mental health)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-06-01 do 2023-11-30
The environMENTAL project investigates how global challenges (climate change, urbanization, and COVID-19-related stress) impact mental health across the lifespan. Leveraging data from 1.5 million Europeans with deep phenotyping, the project aims to identify brain mechanisms related to symptoms like depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Using interdisciplinary approaches, including -omics analyses and virtual brain simulations, the project aims to develop risk biomarkers, interventions, and evidence-based strategies for environmentally-related mental illnesses.
WP01 - Gene Environment Data Infrastructure and Discovery
WP1 established large dataset harmonization infrastructure, with an approved report in November 2022. Collaborations, especially in data harmonization and enriching the MoBa Study, are ongoing but delayed by privacy and ethical approval issues. Personnel updates, including postdocs and a data manager, demonstrate ongoing efforts to enhance project capabilities.
WP02 - Development of a Multimodal Environmental Assessment Tool
Focused on urbanicity and rurality as well as regional socioeconomic status, we prepared detailed data for the UK and Germany, and processed 20-year climate data for Europe and China. Achievements include a robust geodata infrastructure. We published a report on effects of urbanicity on mental health in Nature Medicine.
WP03 - Development and Implementation of Digital Health Assessments
WP3 launched StreetMind, assessing stakeholder feedback and re-assessing cohorts with WP9. The platform collects data for linkage (WP1,12) and stratification (WP4). Dissemination efforts include a video and a paper under consideration by Nature Human Behaviour.
WP04 - Data Analysis and Biomarker Identification
Focus is on developing a spatial epidemiology platform with custom algorithms available on GitHub. Validation work (Task 4.3) is underway, and efforts include preparing normative models and publishing research on adversity's impact on brain structure in Nature Neuroscience.
WP05 - Deep Phenotyping Follow-Up and -Omics Characterisation
This WP mainly focuses on the enrichment of cohorts with multi-omics for mental illness biomarkers. Despite delays, insights into genetic determinants and epigenome maps from IMAGEN data were linked to mental health symptoms, informing WP7 models.
WP06 - Replication and Validation in Clinical Cohorts
WP6 assembled 2000 subjects from clinical cohorts (e.g. depression, AUD, schizophrenia). Harmonization efforts include standardizing datasets, creating cohort overviews, and developing a Python-based framework for data visualization. We reported about the identification of a brain risk factor for psychiatric illness, the NP factor, in Nature Medicine. Collaboration with WP4 applies normative models to generate Environmental Risk and Resilience Signatures, initially for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
WP07 - Mechanistic Investigations and Drug Discovery
WP7, starting in M18, focuses on coordinating and preparing for cellular modelling, harmonizing parental cell lines, and conducting 'housekeeping activities,' such as banking stem cells and harmonizing protocols. Intense collaboration with instructing WP5 ensures swift translation of upstream results into WP7 tasks.
WP08 - Digital Intervention
WP8 advances VR program for mental health, achieving experimental design and programming milestones, allowing pollution level manipulation. Next steps: pilot study, ethical approval, and 60% completion, with EEG-fMRI work in a later phase. Project on track, emphasizing VR refinement, initial experiments, and ethical compliance.
WP09 - Responsible Research and Innovation
WP9 organized a seminar on July 5, 2022, focusing on establishing a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) program. It outlined activities for the RRI work plan and played a key role in developing the Stakeholder Board (SB) and Ethics Advisory Board (EAB). The project's Consensus Conference (CC) encouraged public participation, concluding with a final event in Berlin on Dec 1 – 3, 2023, involving 22 participants from among others China, UK, Netherlands and Germany.
WP10 - Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation
WP10 developed branded communication tools, such as a dedicated website and social media accounts, along with templates for presentations and publications. Notably, the project disseminated significant papers in JAMA Psychiatry and Nature Mental Health.
WP11 - Project Coordination and Management
WP11, overseeing Project Coordination and Management, implemented successful communication structures, fostering partner engagement and continuous project monitoring. Meticulous management and coordination, facilitated by the Project Management Office, consortium-wide communication, and governance bodies, along with processes like risk assessment and internal ethics evaluation, ensure effective project control.
WP12 - Data Management
In the first project period, WP12 created a comprehensive data management plan (DMP), set up a data infrastructure using an HPC cluster and a cloud framework, and developed a Mellite meta-database prototype for managing metadata, adhering to FAIR principles. The updated DMP (v2) will be available in Q1/24, and the Mellite database is planned for productive use in Q2/24.
WP13 - Ethics requirements
The ethics work package has reached successful completion
WP1 established large dataset harmonization infrastructure, with an approved report in November 2022. Collaborations, especially in data harmonization and enriching the MoBa Study, are ongoing but delayed by privacy and ethical approval issues. Personnel updates, including postdocs and a data manager, demonstrate ongoing efforts to enhance project capabilities.
WP02 - Development of a Multimodal Environmental Assessment Tool
Focused on urbanicity and rurality as well as regional socioeconomic status, we prepared detailed data for the UK and Germany, and processed 20-year climate data for Europe and China. Achievements include a robust geodata infrastructure. We published a report on effects of urbanicity on mental health in Nature Medicine.
WP03 - Development and Implementation of Digital Health Assessments
WP3 launched StreetMind, assessing stakeholder feedback and re-assessing cohorts with WP9. The platform collects data for linkage (WP1,12) and stratification (WP4). Dissemination efforts include a video and a paper under consideration by Nature Human Behaviour.
WP04 - Data Analysis and Biomarker Identification
Focus is on developing a spatial epidemiology platform with custom algorithms available on GitHub. Validation work (Task 4.3) is underway, and efforts include preparing normative models and publishing research on adversity's impact on brain structure in Nature Neuroscience.
WP05 - Deep Phenotyping Follow-Up and -Omics Characterisation
This WP mainly focuses on the enrichment of cohorts with multi-omics for mental illness biomarkers. Despite delays, insights into genetic determinants and epigenome maps from IMAGEN data were linked to mental health symptoms, informing WP7 models.
WP06 - Replication and Validation in Clinical Cohorts
WP6 assembled 2000 subjects from clinical cohorts (e.g. depression, AUD, schizophrenia). Harmonization efforts include standardizing datasets, creating cohort overviews, and developing a Python-based framework for data visualization. We reported about the identification of a brain risk factor for psychiatric illness, the NP factor, in Nature Medicine. Collaboration with WP4 applies normative models to generate Environmental Risk and Resilience Signatures, initially for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
WP07 - Mechanistic Investigations and Drug Discovery
WP7, starting in M18, focuses on coordinating and preparing for cellular modelling, harmonizing parental cell lines, and conducting 'housekeeping activities,' such as banking stem cells and harmonizing protocols. Intense collaboration with instructing WP5 ensures swift translation of upstream results into WP7 tasks.
WP08 - Digital Intervention
WP8 advances VR program for mental health, achieving experimental design and programming milestones, allowing pollution level manipulation. Next steps: pilot study, ethical approval, and 60% completion, with EEG-fMRI work in a later phase. Project on track, emphasizing VR refinement, initial experiments, and ethical compliance.
WP09 - Responsible Research and Innovation
WP9 organized a seminar on July 5, 2022, focusing on establishing a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) program. It outlined activities for the RRI work plan and played a key role in developing the Stakeholder Board (SB) and Ethics Advisory Board (EAB). The project's Consensus Conference (CC) encouraged public participation, concluding with a final event in Berlin on Dec 1 – 3, 2023, involving 22 participants from among others China, UK, Netherlands and Germany.
WP10 - Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation
WP10 developed branded communication tools, such as a dedicated website and social media accounts, along with templates for presentations and publications. Notably, the project disseminated significant papers in JAMA Psychiatry and Nature Mental Health.
WP11 - Project Coordination and Management
WP11, overseeing Project Coordination and Management, implemented successful communication structures, fostering partner engagement and continuous project monitoring. Meticulous management and coordination, facilitated by the Project Management Office, consortium-wide communication, and governance bodies, along with processes like risk assessment and internal ethics evaluation, ensure effective project control.
WP12 - Data Management
In the first project period, WP12 created a comprehensive data management plan (DMP), set up a data infrastructure using an HPC cluster and a cloud framework, and developed a Mellite meta-database prototype for managing metadata, adhering to FAIR principles. The updated DMP (v2) will be available in Q1/24, and the Mellite database is planned for productive use in Q2/24.
WP13 - Ethics requirements
The ethics work package has reached successful completion
Outcome/Impact I: Researchers, health care professionals and developers of medical interventions have a much better understanding of how genetic, epigenetic, and environmental risk and resilience factors interact to drive or prevent the transition from mental health to mental illness throughout the life course. Developers of medical interventions make use of this understanding to develop novel classes of medications and non-pharmaceutical interventions for the prevention and treatment of mental illnesses.
Outcome/Impact II: Mental health professionals have access to different types of validated biomarkers for making more accurate diagnoses and for optimising and personalising preventive and therapeutic treatment decisions. As a result, patients receive more targeted therapies. They experience less stigma due to more accurate and objective diagnoses and increased public awareness about the molecular and neurobiological basis of mental health and illness.
Outcome/Impact II: Mental health professionals have access to different types of validated biomarkers for making more accurate diagnoses and for optimising and personalising preventive and therapeutic treatment decisions. As a result, patients receive more targeted therapies. They experience less stigma due to more accurate and objective diagnoses and increased public awareness about the molecular and neurobiological basis of mental health and illness.