eBRAIN-Health is a Horizon Europe-funded research project that was launched in July 2022, with a total budget of almost 13 million EUR. Involving 20 partners including Alzheimer Europe, eBRAIN-Health is coordinated by Prof. Petra Ritter, Johanna Quandt Professor of Brain Simulation at Charité University Hospital, Berlin. The project will run for four years, until July 2026. Alzheimer Europe will lead the Public Involvement activities in eBRAIN-Health, and contribute to communications and outreach work.
The eBRAIN-Health project is built around the concept of "digital twins". Digital twins are virtual representations of individuals, created based on vast quantities of clinical data and scientific knowledge. Using artificial intelligence, this information can be integrated into a “digital twin”, personalised to resemble the clinical characteristics of individual people. As our real-time, virtual representations, digital twins have the potential to support more accurate and personalised decision-making - for example by allowing doctors to simulate the future outcomes of different treatment options.
In eBRAIN-Health, a large variety of data sources will be brought together in a GDPR-compliant research platform, to support the development of digital representations of the brain. These data sources will include brain scans, behavioural studies and lifestyle surveys, as well as clinical data from thousands of patients and healthy peers. The data will be combined with biological information from scientific research on the brain, helping to build complete and highly-detailed simulations of the brain. These simulations can then be personalised to resemble individual people, creating a brain “digital twin”. These “digital twins" will allow a large number of researchers to conduct innovative brain research within a powerful digital platform that keeps patient data secure and confidential. In addition, the digital twins have the potential to improve our understanding of brain function and disease at an individual level; improve diagnosis and risk prediction, and optimise potential therapies.
The eBRAIN-Health project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101058516.
