HEALTHY BRAINS FOR A SMART PLANET (IM2A)

Prevention through algorithms 

Who doesn’t worry about their memory as they age? Attention wanes, we look for names, we forget what we came for in a room. Is there any reason to worry? How can we act when it is now scientifically proven that the human brain is capable of fighting the effects of aging, and that its resilience maintains function despite the presence of structural changes. At the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, the IM2A, the first French clinical research center totally dedicated to the prevention, early diagnosis, pathophysiological research and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, is developing a tool that should make it possible to identify lesions very early, even before the onset of symptoms. Through the HEALTHYBRAIN program, neurologists and neuroimaging specialists aim to make significant progress in the prevention and treatment of these neurodegenerative diseases. The market targeted by Prof. Bruno Dubois and his team is the aging brain. They are targeting cognitively normal individuals who nevertheless complain of slight memory problems, an extremely common phenomenon, affecting 70% of the population over 60 years of age, among whom only a few are likely to present a cognitive decline evolving towards disease.

The solution that IM2A wishes to implement consists in financing a study with 1500 normal subjects, with cognitive, biological, genetic and neuroimaging data at entry and during follow-up. Then, it will follow these normal subjects with a specific digital tool, HEALTH-BRAIN, a new instrument recently validated by this expert center to structure a longitudinal database to analyze subjects with cognitive decline over time. Then, the program will have to determine through collected scientific data, the individual algorithm of progression towards cognitive decline according to biological, neuroradiological, genetic or environmental risk factors. It will also make it possible to determine and propose a personalized intervention program based on the prevention of these factors and/or the promotion of physical exercise and the Mediterranean diet. This tool at the crossroads of neurology and scientific analysis to define medically relevant algorithms is intended to have a positive impact on health care costs and care.