Project description
Unveiling sub-types in autism
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heritable, neurodevelopmental disability affecting social, communication and behavioural functioning, often accompanied by additional co-morbidities. High heterogeneity of its clinical presentation, its unknown underlying pathophysiology, origin and significance of such diversity of its patterns do not allow selection of sub-types to effective clusters. Today that poses a serious challenge to effective early diagnosis and treatment. The EU-funded CANSAS project proposes a deconstruction of the connectional and clinical ASD heterogeneity. It will use translationally relevant mouse brain rsfMRI measurements for the first decomposing of the human ASD rsfMRI datasets into homogeneous subtypes and will recapitulate biologically-validated information provided by direct observation.
Objective
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are among the most heritable developmental disorders, associated with a large number of rare genetic alterations. A critical goal of current ASD research is to deconstruct its heterogeneity into clinically homogeneous sub-set of patients, characterized by distinct neurobiological or functional deficits, amenable to precise therapeutic targeting. Fostered by the advent of resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI), human brain mapping has revealed highly heterogeneous patterns of neural synchronization (i.e. “functional connectivity”) in ASD, with evidence of inconsistent, often contrasting, patterns of over- and under-connectivity across patient cohorts. However, the origin and significance of these highly heterogeneous findings remain unclear: does genetic heterogeneity account for the observed network divergences? And can we use functional connectivity fingerprints to cluster ASD into clinically relevant sub-types? The present project leverages translationally-relevant mouse brain rsfMRI measurements to propose a first-of-its-kind decomposition of human ASD rsfMRI datasets into homogeneous sub-types, recapitulating biologically-validated “ground truth” network features identified in the mouse. To this aim, I will use a set of etiologically-relevant rsfMRI fingerprints identified in a unique mouse datasets comprising 20 ASD-associated mutations to guide clustering of a large collection of human rsfMRI datasets. Socio-cognitive profiling will be employed to probe the clinical significance and homogeneity of the identified clusters. I will next combine advanced statistical modelling and gene ontologies to explore the biological underpinnings of each identified connectivity sub-type. These investigations will lead to a novel, etiologically-relevant deconstruction of the connectional and clinical heterogeneity of ASD that may improve patient stratification, guide the identification of dysfunctional pathways and help prediction of treatment response.
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.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
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.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
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.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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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.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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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-MSCA-IF-2018
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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.
16163 Genova
Italy
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.