Reducing the impact of major environmental challenges on mental health

该项目将调查一些最大的全球环境挑战，气候变化，城市化和由COVID-19大流行引起的心理压力如何影响整个生命周期的心理健康。它将确定其潜在的分子机制，并制定预防和早期干预措施。利用来自大规模行为神经成像队列的150多万欧洲公民和患者的队列数据，我们将确定与抑郁，焦虑，压力和药物滥用的环境逆境相关的大脑机制。通过将人口和患者数据通过地理位置与来自遥感卫星、气候模型、区域社会经济数据和数字健康应用的时空环境数据联系起来，我们的跨学科团队将开发与转诊断症状相关的多模式环境特征的神经认知模型特征在于共享的大脑机制。我们将使用多模态组学分析，脑类器官和虚拟脑模拟来揭示这些机制背后的分子基础，从而为每个人的生命周期和功能范围提供综合视角。所获得的见解将应用于开发风险生物标志物和分层标志物。然后，我们将筛选针对所发现的分子机制的药理学化合物。我们还将使用基于不利环境特征的虚拟现实干预措施来减少症状的发展和进展-与利益相关者密切合作开发。总的来说，该项目将导致客观的生物标志物和循证药理学和基于VR的干预措施，这将显着预防和改善与环境相关的精神疾病的结果，并使欧盟公民能够更好地管理他们的心理健康和福祉。

The environMENTAL project will investigate how some of the greatest global environmental challenges, climate change, urbanisation, and psychosocial stress caused by the COVID-19-pandemic affect mental health over the lifespan. It will identify their underlying molecular mechanisms and develop preventions and early interventions. Leveraging cohort data of over 1.5 million European citizens and patients enriched with deep phenotyping data from large scale behavioural neuroimaging cohorts, we will identify brain mechanisms related to environmental adversity underlying symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress and substance abuse. By linking population and patient data via geo-location to spatiotemporal environmental data derived from remote sensing satellites, climate models, regional socioeconomic data and digital health applications, our interdisciplinary team will develop a neurocognitive model of multimodal environmental signatures related to transdiagnostic symptom groups that are characterised by shared brain mechanisms. We will uncover the molecular basis underlying these mechanisms using multi-modal -omics analyses, brain organoids and virtual brain simulations, thus providing an integrated perspective for each individual across the lifespan and spectrum of functioning. The insight gained will be applied to developing risk biomarkers and stratification markers. We will then screen for pharmacological compounds targeting the molecular mechanisms discovered. We will also reduce symptom development and progression using virtual reality interventions based on the adverse environmental features - developed in close collaboration with stakeholders. Overall, this project will lead to objective biomarkers and evidence-based pharmacologic and VR-based interventions that will significantly prevent and improve outcomes of environmentally-related mental illnesses, and empower EU citizens to manage better their mental health and well-being.