Objectives

The current nosology of neuropsychiatric disorders lacks reference to quantitative biological underpinnings of disease. This weakness impedes innovative
drug development. PRISM 2 builds on the findings of the PRISM research approach to develop more precise tools for the diagnosis and treatment of neuro-psychiatric disorders.

The overall aim of PRISM 2 is to accelerate the development of effective treatments for patients suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders by implementing a quantitative, transdiagnostic neurobiological approach to the understanding of these disorders.

The following specific objectives will be addressed by the PRISM 2 project:

  • Determine the reproducibility of the transdiagnostic and pathophysiological relationship between default mode network (DMN) integrity and social dysfunction in schizophrenia (SZ) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and its potential to generalise to Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
  • Test the causality between the quantitative variation in DMN integrity and social dysfunction
  • Translate and communicate the project’s results efficiently to all stakeholders for the benefit of patients and their families, regulators, health care providers, the general public, learned societies, and the pharmaceutical industry
The default mode network (DMN) and social function. The upper panel depicts the DMN constellation with its 3 main subnetworks that subserve specialized functions across the social cognitive/affective domain. The lower panel depicts the DMN and its key subregions, which tend to highly overlap with those of the so-called “social brain”.