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The Santa Lucia IRCCS Foundation has obtained funding for a total of 11 projects, through funds from the 2023 National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) of the Ministry of Health. The Italian center will receive resources for a total amount of over 10 million euros. The Roman hospital will be the leader in 7 of the 11 approved projects, while in 4 it will have the role of operational unit.
Excellence in neuroscience
All 11 projects are declinations of the vast field of neuroscience, a research field that sees the Santa Lucia Foundation in first place among the Italian IRCCS. From the study of the gut-brain axis through the microbiota, in a project coordinated by prof. Daniele Caprioli, up to the field of non-invasive brain-computer interfaces, a technology in which the Santa Lucia IRCCS has been a pioneer for over 20 years thanks to the work of Dr. Donatella Mattia, winner of one of the PNRR projects.
Alzheimer’s projects
Prof.’s project is always part of the field of technology, in particular non-invasive neurological stimulation technologies. Giacomo Koch, neurologist, researcher and among the top 10 international experts in the field of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), winner of a PNRR project that combines TMS with electrical stimulation in patients with Alzheimer’s.
Prof.’s project is also linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Marcello D’Amelio, who combines the three biomarkers most studied today to recognize the onset of the disease: neuroimaging, neuropsychological tests and blood biomarkers, to be able to predict, before the appearance of symptoms, the possibility that a patient develops the disease and therefore give an additional possibility of intervention with the therapies that are currently being studied. In the field of neuroimaging, the study of Dr. Silvia Capuani is also part of a project that studies the characterization of microstructural damage of the spinal cord through magnetic resonance imaging.
Neurorehabilitation
A particular space is dedicated to translational research in neurorehabilitation, i.e. research that immediately translates into innovations in patient therapies. Among the projects led by the Santa Lucia IRCCS Foundation is the research conducted by physicist and physiologist Prof. Iole Indovina on new neurorehabilitation protocols dedicated to patients suffering from persistent dizziness, a particularly disabling condition for daily life, and the research of prof. Marco Iosa, who will study the “double task” or “dual task” approach applied to people with neuroinflammatory pathologies. The Dual Task approach, which has long been applied at the Santa Lucia IRCCS hospital, combines motor and cognitive therapies, recreating the conditions of daily life as best as possible and is therefore more effective in restoring the patient’s autonomy.