Project: Neurodevelopmental Optimal-Predictors, Risk factors, and Intervention from a Systems approach to Maladjustment in Children
Acronym: Neo-PRISM-C
Mental health
disorders pose a massive economic and societal burden. Emerging early in
development and resulting in long-term disability, neurodevelopmental
dysfunctions (NDD) compromise the quality of life of millions of Europeans,
with implications for the sustainability of health systems and the likelihood
of achieving the Europe 2020 strategy on economic growth. The indirect costs of
mental dysfunctions, estimated by the European Brain Council (EBC) at ~800
billion euros per year, make up around 40% of the total costs, making the
diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental health problems a public health
challenge. Most urgent are mental health problems that arise in early
development since disability at this stage affects the entire lifespan and predicts
later dysfunctions (see http://www.braincouncil.eu/ activities/projects/).
The Neo-PRISM-C, a four-year project funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Program (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018) under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (2018-2022) and led by the Center for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, aims to study Neurodevelopmental Dysfunctions (NDD). The purpose of the Neo-PRISM-C ITN is to train Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) from multiple disciplines (such as psychology, neuroscience, data science) in applying the Research Domain Criteria approach, a novel framework initiated by the USA National Institute of Mental Health1 for understanding psychopathology, to the study of the mechanisms of NDD, to inform and begin to test appropriate treatments.
Towards this goal, we
have assembled a trans-sectoral European network with expertise in cognitive,
social, educational, clinical, and emotion research and in training ESRs. Six
research, training and management work packages (WPs) pursue these goals. WP1 comprises
innovative projects, investigating risk and protective factors that span across
NDD diagnostic categories (autism, learning, emotional difficulties) and
linking to the healthcare industry and education. WP2 examines
systems-level brain development to identify biological substrates of specific
dysfunctions. WP3 applies this knowledge to develop new
multi-modal interventions to address domains of impairment. The academic,
industrial, and clinical partners collaborate across themes, offering
ESRs project-specific secondments, supervision, workshops, summer school and
courses on research, transferable and entrepreneurial skills. Neo-PRISM-C is expected to
further understanding of NDD and improve the competitiveness of EU health
professionals and scholars, providing the market with highly-skilled
researchers and clinicians.
The Project
Coordinator is Prof. Timothy Papadopoulos, and the Vice-Coordinator is Prof.
Georgia Panayiotou.
For
more information about the project, visit the official project’s website and
social media pages.
For more information about the project, visit the official project’s website and social media pages.
FINAL CONFERENCE
European Journal of Psychology Open (2023) 23/09/2023 – The Neo-PRISM-C Final Conference
