Project description
AI for cognitive and cardiac disease prevention
Vascular dementia and heart failure severely affect human health leading to quality of life deterioration and even death. Both are associated with comorbidities that affect all organs, particularly the brain and heart. The therapeutic targeting of these comorbidities is used in the treatment of cognitive impairment and heart failure. Comorbidities also lead to microvascular rarefaction, whose diagnosis is limited due to technological barriers. The EU-funded CRUCIAL project intends to identify the role of microvascular rarefaction in cognitive impairment and heart failure by developing innovative imaging instruments and taking advantage of non-contrast and AI methods. The project will provide diagnostic models that will prevent cognitive and heart disease progression, limit morbidity and improve the quality of life.
Objective
Vascular dementia and heart failure represent major health burden to morbidity, mortality and quality of life. Comorbidities (hypertension, aging, diabetes, etc.) affect all organs, but the brain and heart are especially sensitive to these chronic stresses resulting in cognitive impairment (a mental disorder) and heart failure (a non-mental disorder). These comorbidities also induce a reduction in microvascular density, called microvascular rarefaction. We have build a consortium, CRUCIAL, which will develop a coordinated program to investigate the role of microvascular rarefaction in cognitive impairment and heart failure.
Diagnosis of microvascular rarefaction is limited by the inability to assess microvascular density. We will develop advanced imaging tools taking advantage of the newest MRI technology including non-contrast and artificial intelligence methods to assess brain and heart microvascular rarefaction. We will also develop other non-invasive measures that will be cheaper and easier to widely disseminate in clinical practice (sublingual and retinal microvascular imaging, and blood microvesicle analysis). We will then apply these techniques to prospective and retrospective patient cohorts with cognitive impairment and heart failure to demonstrate that rarefaction can be used as a biomarker to diagnose and stratify patients. Microvascular regression is now recognised as an active process. We will therefore investigate, through animal models, the molecular mechanism of vessel rarefaction in the presence of comorbidities that could be targeted therapeutically.
Therapeutic options for cognitive impairment or heart failure are currently limited to treating co-morbidities. The aim of CRUCUAL is to deliver diagnostic tools to clinician and therapeutic pathways to pharma that target microvascular health in order to prevent cognitive and cardiac disease progression, reduce morbidity and ultimately improve quality of life for patients.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology demography mortality
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine endocrinology diabetes
- medical and health sciences basic medicine neurology dementia
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology implants
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.3.1. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Health, demographic change and well-being
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.3.1.1. - Understanding health, wellbeing and disease
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
RIA - Research and Innovation action
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-SC1-BHC-2018-2020
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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.
3000 LEUVEN
Belgium
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.