Understanding, predicting, and treating depression in pregnancy to improve mothers and offspring mental health outcomes

HappyMums旨在提高我们对怀孕期间抑郁症状发展的生物学机制的理解，以及干预措施的效果。它将询问大量具有多种生物学、医学、临床、社会人口统计学、环境和生活方式数据的队列，以确定引发抑郁症状的最强大的风险因素，以及风险的调节因素。通过将独特的人类胎盘、绒毛膜绒毛和羊水样本以及动物模型放在一起，HappyMums将提高对怀孕期间抑郁症状影响的神经生物学机制的理解，抑郁症状会导致胎儿环境的改变，从而塑造后代发展负面心理结果的风险。三种互补的啮齿动物模型的使用将允许实现因果关系的证明，而创新的鱼类模型的存在将阐明胎盘特有的机制，通过该机制，母体的不利条件将传递给后代，而没有潜在的混淆减轻产后补偿性母体护理的影响。这些知识将有助于确定新药物开发的新靶点，用于现有药物的再利用或用于开发非药物干预措施。HappyMums还将开发一个数字平台，通过手机应用程序收集基于人工智能工具的数据，包括生物、临床、医疗、环境和生活方式数据，该应用程序将通过专用仪表板与临床医生连接。这将有助于早期筛查抑郁症状，及时诊断，个性化治疗，并促进保护性生活方式的态度。总的来说，“快乐妈妈”不仅会增加孕期精神障碍领域的知识，还会改善这些女性的健康状况，为后代乃至整个社会带来前所未有的好处。

HappyMums is designed to improve our understanding on the biological mechanisms underlying the development of depressive symptoms in pregnancy, and the efficacy of interventions. It will interrogate a large collection of cohorts with multiple biological, medical, clinical, socio-demographic and environmental and lifestyle data to identify the most robust risk factors triggering depressive symptoms, but also moderators of the risk. By putting together unique human samples of placenta, chorionic villi and amniotic fluid, and animal models, HappyMums will improve the understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms affected by depressive symptoms in pregnancy that lead to alterations in the foetal environment, shaping offspring risk for developing negative mental outcomes. The use of three complimentary rodent models will allow to achieve a proof of causality, and the presence of an innovative fish model will elucidate the mechanismsspecific to placenta by which adverse maternal conditions are transmitted to the offspring without the potentially confounding mitigating effects of compensatory postnatal maternal care. This knowledge will allow the identification of new targets for the development of novel medications, for the repurposing of existing medications or for the development of non-pharmacological interventions. HappyMums will also develop a digital platform where AI tools-based data can be collected, together with biological, clinical, medical, environmental and lifestyle data, through a mobile phone App that will be at the interface with clinicians via a dedicated dashboard. This will allow early screening of depressive symptoms, prompt diagnoses, personalized treatments, and the promotion of protective lifestyle attitudes. Overall, HappyMums will not only increase the knowledge in the field of mental disorders in pregnancy, but also improve the wellbeing of these women, providing unprecedented benefits also to the offspring and thus to society at large.