Project description
Innovative strategy for dementia prediction and prevention
Prevention of Alzheimer's disease and dementia is a global priority requiring an innovative multimodal preventive approach. The EU-funded Brain Health Toolbox project will create a strategy to develop accurate dementia prediction and effective prevention. This includes employing disease models and prediction tools for prevention, prevention treatment trials, and bridging non-pharmacological and pharmacological approaches. Disease models and prediction tools will be multi-dimensional, with a broad range of risk factors and biomarker types included. Machine learning will profile the most important contributors to an individual’s overall risk level. The Brain Health Toolbox will cover the entire population of patients with preclinical disease stages, and it will provide tools for personalised decision making for dementia prevention.
Objective
Preventing dementia and Alzheimer disease (AD) is a global priority. Previous single-intervention failures stress the critical need for a new multimodal preventive approach in these complex multifactorial conditions. The Brain Health Toolbox is designed to create a seamless continuum from accurate dementia prediction to effective prevention by i) developing the missing disease models and prediction tools for multimodal prevention; ii) testing them in actual multimodal prevention trials; and iii) bridging the gap between non-pharmacological and pharmacological approaches by designing a combined multimodal prevention trial based on a new European adaptive trial platform. Disease models and prediction tools will be multi-dimensional, i.e. a broad range of risk factors and biomarker types, including novel markers. An innovative machine learning method will be used for pattern identification and risk profiling to highlight most important contributors to an individual’s overall risk level. This is crucial for early identification of individuals with high dementia risk and/or high likelihood of specific brain pathologies, quantifying an individual’s prevention potential, and longitudinal risk and disease monitoring, also beyond trial duration. Three Toolbox test scenarios are considered: use for selecting target populations, assessing heterogeneity of intervention effects, and use as trial outcome. The project is based on a unique set-up aligning several new multimodal lifestyle trials aiming to adapt and test non-pharmacological interventions to different geographic, economic and cultural settings, with two reference libraries (observational - large datasets; and interventional - four recently completed pioneering multimodal lifestyle prevention trials). The Brain Health Toolbox covers the entire continuum from general populations to patients with preclinical/prodromal disease stages, and will provide tools for personalized decision-making for dementia prevention.
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
70211 KUOPIO
Finland