SOPRANI · European training network for developing Smart neurOmonitoring solutions to support PRecision medicine in Acute central Nervous Injury

European training network for developing Smart neurOmonitoring solutions to support PRecision medicine in Acute central Nervous Injury

The central nervous system (CNS) oversees our interactions with the environment and a multitude of internal regulatory mechanisms. In addition, the human brain makes actions purposeful and meaningful. Hence, the brain is the seat of what defines us as human beings. Diseases that affect the brain therefore threaten the individual’s independence and personality, and can have major debilitating effects. The same is true for the spinal cord: injuries affect a person’s independence and dignity. Acute injuries to the CNS, such as traumatic brain and spinal cord injury and stroke, often cause a sudden and critical threat to the body’s integrity to such extent that intensive care management is required to support vital functions and help survival. Between the sixties and nineties of the previous century, it was found that intensive care including physiological monitoring reduced mortality by approximately 10% per decade, but this evolution arrested and we have not made further progress. The reason is – unfortunately – rather obvious: physiological monitoring is restricted to the measurement of separate focally captured variables, such as physical pressures, Doppler signals and metabolite concentrations, with pathological cascades and processes being hidden inside the black box the CNS represents. These processes do not operate as on-off switches, but as dynamic impairments of protective mechanisms and dynamic triggering of harmful molecular pathways, and have a final common effect: loss of neuronal tissue threatening qualitative survival. The SOPRANI project combines 4 feasible aims: 1) to use existing large patient data repositories with patient, injury, monitoring, treatment and outcome data and apply advanced statistical methods in order to improve adverse event detection, predict treatment effects and test treatment algorithms; 2) to use animal models within the network to investigate and develop monitoring tools that elicit actual pathophysiological processes that affect brain and spinal cord perfusion and tissue survival; 3) to use 1 & 2 to develop smart monitoring platforms that better support clinical decision making in the intensive care unit; 4) to create a network of relevant clinical, biomedical, statistical and engineering expertise and transfer essential concepts to the next generation of researchers. Even if only part of the goals are achieved, output is valuable to push the frontiers of neuro-intensive care in order to save brain and spinal cord and improve quality of meaningful life in patients with acute CNS injury. website: www.soprani.eu

Data: CORDIS, © European Union