An estimated 179 million individuals in Europe are currently suffering from brain disorders. For many of these disorders, including depression, substance abuse, autism, schizophrenia, insomnia, and dementia, there is no cure.
The difficulty lies in the complex ‘aetiology’ of brain disorders, meaning that they are typically influenced by multiple genetic and environmental risk factors. As such available treatments mostly focus on symptom relief and are only effective in subsets of patients.
Recent genetic discovery studies have provided unprecedented insight into the genes involved in brain disorders. Meanwhile a recent revolution in technologies in experimental neuroscience has enabled studying of brains at a single cell resolution. The ambition of the BRAINSCAPES research team led by Danielle Posthuma is to capitalize these successes in genetics and neurobiology and to gain a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind complex brain disorders. The team consists of groups from seven universities, institutes, and medical centers in The Netherlands, and connects scientists from different disciplines. Together they will develop novel analytical and experimental tools to study the consequences of genetic risk on the functioning of specific cells and brain tissues. The ultimate aim is to facilitate new experimental approaches that can be used to design novel treatments.
