Synapsing Mental Disorders and Neurodegenerative diseases: Towards more effective diagnosis and management of psychiatric symptoms

Disrupted neuronal connectivity and synapse dysfunction can manifest clinically as a range of emotional, behavioural and cognitive symptoms that are common to, and often overlapping in, mental disorders (MDs) such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) such as Alzheimers disease and Parkinsons disease.

Antidepressants and antipsychotics used to treat these symptoms are often ineffective in ND patients and treatment-resistance is common in MD patients.

To tackle the burden exacted on society by untreated psychiatric symptoms, Synapsing will generate the first trans-European clinical collection of clinical, neuroimaging and socioeconomic data from >3000 patients from MD and ND clinics for use in Synapsing and beyond.

Synapsing aims to introduce a biological framework for MDs through a search for blood biomarkers to engender a faster, more objective diagnosis and reduce misdiagnosis with NDs.

To minimise the use of inefficient treatments across MDs and NDs, Synapsing will develop blood biomarkers to objectively monitor therapeutic response and to stratify patients who would benefit from therapeutic intervention.

To guide the development of more effective treatments, Synapsing will model synapse dysfunction using post-mortem brain tissue and induced pluripotent stem cell derived neurons from MD and ND patients.

To prevent social disparities impacting on healthcare, Synapsing will identify modifiable socioeconomic risk factors for psychiatric symptoms in >2000 individuals with a lived experience of mental health issues and MD and ND patients recruited across Europe.

Recommendations for evidence-based policy initiatives targeted towards reducing these risk factors will be disseminated to EU council agencies.

Expected outcomes include better understanding of these under-researched conditions, revised clinical guidelines to better diagnose and manage patients and strengthened knowledge and care networks.