In our society, one in four people suffer from a brain disorder. ‘For many brain disorders, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying them,’ says consortium leader Inge Huitinga, professor by special appointment of Neuroimmunology at the UvA and head of the Neuroimmunology research group of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. ‘The relationship between changes in brain tissue and patients’ symptoms is very complex. We do not really know which types of cells, which brain networks and which molecular processes cause the psychiatric symptoms of patients with a brain disease. Some symptoms occur in various conditions and the clinical picture can look very different from patient to patient. For example, someone may have Alzheimer’s or frontotemporal dementia, but also develop depressive symptoms. That can lead to incorrect diagnoses.’
Pooling forces
Maarten Kole (group leader at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and also involved in the consortium): “We believe that psychiatric symptoms are related to changes occurring in individual cells, particularly between the supportive (glial) cells and nerve cells. There is increasingly more brain material available from people with psychiatric disorders to investigate this issue. Meanwhile, in chemistry and molecular biology, various promising techniques have emerged, such as single-cell transcriptomics, (chemical) proteomics, advanced microscopy, and ‘click chemistry’. These could fundamentally change research into the human brain.”
“By pooling forces across different disciplines, including neurobiology, chemistry, data science, and psychiatry, we hope to ultimately gain more clarity on what exactly happens in the cells and bring this together into a molecular ‘brain atlas’. The goal is to develop biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis, and ultimately treatment of the brain disorders that affect many people. If we better understand what exactly goes wrong in the brain, we can soon measure it in the blood or with PET scans to determine what is happening. This can lead us towards a more personalized approach, also known as ‘personalized medicine’.”