Background
Vascular dementia and heart failure represent major health burdens to morbidity, mortality, and quality of life. Comorbidities (hypertension, aging, diabetes, etc.) affect all organs, but the brain and heart are especially sensitive to these chronic stresses resulting in cognitive impairment (a mental disorder) and heart failure (a non-mental disorder). These comorbidities also induce a reduction in microvascular density, called microvascular rarefaction.
Key project: CRUCIAL
Diagnosis of microvascular rarefaction is limited by the inability to assess microvascular density. CRUCIAL will investigate the ability of the newest MRI technology to detect changes in microvascular function using non-contrast diffusion imaging and artificial intelligence methods.
The project will also develop other non-invasive measures of microvascular rarefaction that will be cheaper and easier to widely disseminate in clinical practice (sublingual and retinal microvascular imaging, and blood microvesicle analysis). CRUCIAL will apply these techniques to prospective cohorts with cognitive impairment and heart failure, with the goal of demonstrating that rarefaction can be used as a biomarker to diagnose and stratify patients.
Microvascular regression is now recognised as an active process. This project will therefore investigate the molecular mechanism of vessel rarefaction in the presence of comorbidities that could be targeted therapeutically. Therapeutic options for cognitive impairment or heart failure are currently limited to treating co-morbidities.
The Microvascular Helix is an international Open Innovation community of specialists in vascular diseases and related disciplines. The Helix was launched as a focus for impact and dissemination services in support of the CRUCIAL project's ambition to deliver diagnostic tools to clinicians, and therapeutic pathways to pharma, that target microvascular health. In achieving this ambition, CRUCIAL will contribute towards efforts to prevent cognitive and cardiac disease progression, reduce morbidity, and ultimately improve quality of life for patients worldwide.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 848109.
Funded by the European Union
Dr. Karen Galvin
“The Vascular Helix aims to tackle the ongoing challenge of vascular disease through collaboration and translation of state-of-the-art basic science and clinical research.”
Dr. Jonathan Bennett
Resources
Latest Opportunities
-
Seeking collaborators for: Integrated, multi-scale computational models of patient patho-physiology (‘virtual twins’) for personalised d
Project Proposal
We have come to a point where computational heart modeling can really start to benefit the patient, for improved diagnosis, prognosis, treatment planning,...
Read more... -
CUCrowdhelix User
Seeking to join consortium for "Unlocking the full potential of new tools, technologies and digital solutions for a healthy society" calls
Project Proposal
-
-
Cardiovascular diseases - offering expertise in research of molecular aspects of pharmacokinetics and gene regulation
Project Proposal
We would like to join a consortium preparing a phase 2 proposal on this topic. Read bellow the expertise of the interdisciplinary research group of...
Read more...
