What we do
About our project
The challenge of psycho-cardio-matabolic (PCM) multi-morbidity
Depression, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are very common and often co-occurring conditions. Individually, each of these diseases represent a huge burden for citizens and healthcare systems. In addition to their separate complexity, these conditions also often show multi-morbidity: they tend to happen to the same people. This psycho-cardio-metabolic (PCM) multi-morbidity was shown to persist after accounting for relevant lifestyle factors (such as smoking, exercise and diet), suggesting the existence of shared biological dysregulations. However, causative mechanisms leading to PCM multi-morbidity are not well understood, which does not yet allow for the development of coordinated preventive and therapeutic measures.
Role of early life stress (ELS)
Mounting evidence has been suggesting how many mental and physical diseases find their developmental origin in the accumulated effects of stress early in life – early-life stress (ELS). Exposure to stressful events or circumstances, both prenatally (during gestation) and postnatally (during childhood), has been known for a long time to increase the risk of depression across the lifespan. Furthermore, while the impact of ELS on physical health has traditionally received far less attention, growing evidence has also supported an association between ELS and cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and metabolic dysfunction.
ELS and PCM multi-morbidity: an integrative approach
Research on the role of ELS on health has so far mainly relied on correlational, cross-sectional or retrospective data. Further, studies have focused on individual health outcomes separately. As such, we still know little about how ELS may influence PCM multi-morbidity across the lifespan and through what biological mechanisms.
EarlyCause (www.earlycause.eu/), a European project involving research groups from 10 different countries, was established to address these gaps.
Our research focus
Objective 1
Identify specific mechanisms and molecular pathways linking ELS to multi-morbidity by leveraging unprecedented large-scale human cohorts, as well as refined animal and cellular models.
Objective 2
Identify mediators and moderators of the impact of ELS on multi-morbidity development, investigating specifically (1) epigenetics, (2) inflammation, (3) neuroendocrine system, (4) microbiome, and (5) environmental factors.
Objective 3
Perform multi-level data integration to derive new computational tools, multi-factorial signatures and life-course models of multi-morbidity development.
Objective 4
Establish an open-access research platform along with best practices for accelerating future research on early-life stress and multi-morbidity.
Objective 5
Evaluate and promote the research findings for integrating ELS in personalised prevention, diagnosis and management of multi-morbid patients, as well as in future biomedical and technological innovations.
Funds & Grants
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant n: 848158).
Collaborations
Internal collaborations
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
- Department of Paediatrics.
- Department of Epidemiology.
External collaborations
- UPF - Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
- EMBL EBI - European Bioinformatics Institute.
- UZH - University Zürich.
- KCL - King’s College London.
- CSIC - Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
- CERBM - Centre Européen de Recherche en Biologie et Médecine - Institut Clinique de la Souris.
- OULU – University of Oulu - Oulun yliopisto.
- IRCCS - Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli.
- UOB - University of Bristol.
- VUMC - Stichting VUmc.
- EMP - empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH.
- COMBI - Combinostics Oy.
Publications
Identifying causative mechanisms linking early-life stress to psycho-cardio-metabolic multi-morbidity: The EarlyCause project. Mariani N, Borsini A, Cecil CAM, Felix JF, Sebert S, Cattaneo A, Walton E, Milaneschi Y, Cochrane G, Amid C, Rajan J, Giacobbe J, Sanz Y, Agustí A, Sorg T, Herault Y, Miettunen J, Parmar P, Cattane N, Jaddoe V, Lötjönen J, Buisan C, González Ballester MA, Piella G, Gelpi JL, Lamers F, Penninx BWJH, Tiemeier H, von Tottleben M, Thiel R, Heil KF, Järvelin MR, Pariante C, Mansuy IM, Lekadir K. PLoS One. 2021 Jan 21;16(1):e0245475. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245475. PMID: 33476328; PMCID: PMC7819604.
Our team
- Charlotte Cecil
- Janine Felix
- Rosa Mulder
- Serena Defina
