Team Sylvaine ARTERO – Philippe COURTET

Our unifying hypothesis is that environmental conditions, whether exogenous (psychosocial exposures, stress, lifestyle, pathogens, pollution and climate) or endogenous (diet, immunity, microbiota, inflammation), shape our brain, cognition and behavior by influencing individual genetic vulnerability. Within this framework, we study major neuropsychiatric disorders such as suicidal behavior, bipolar disorders, depression, eating disorders, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.

In an original approach, we identify risk factors or biological, cognitive and behavioral determinants common to these phenotypes, and work on multi-causal etiological models. We have highlighted commonalities between psychiatric and neurological disorders (cerebral white matter alterations, amyloid biomarkers, inflammation, decision-making) and identified specific homogeneous sub-groups (vulnerable personalities, late-onset depression, sleep disorders, social pain). These data pave the way for precision medicine.

Methods
Our epidemiological and clinical work is based on:
• Population-based cohorts, including the three-city study (Bordeaux, Dijon, Montpellier) nearly 10,000 people aged 65 and over followed for 15 years, and its psychiatric part the Esprit study. We also work with open-access cohorts such as CONSTANCES.
• Innovative clinical cohorts: Sui-predict, Smart-crisis, DIBLAN, G-PACTS, NISIS, SOLSTIS, GENESIS, DIAPEPSY, FACE.

These richly phenotyped cohorts allow us to perform multi-level analyses (lifestyle, iatrogeny, neuropsychology, genetics, biology, brain imaging). Some cohorts are also equipped with cutting edge sub-clinical biomarkers, integrating ‘omics’ and markers from e-health (movement, sleep, social networks, biosensors) and robotics (social interactions). Using longitudinal data, including lifetime exposure, we establish predictive statistical models.

Our work is then enriched by translational approaches, notably in collaboration with other IGF teams, in order to decipher pathophysiological processes identified in our cohorts.

Our collaborations
• National: ISEM, Montpellier ; ISPED, Bordeaux ; Institute of Psychiatry & Neurosciences Paris ; Fondamental Foundation, Paris
• International: Univ Melbourne & Canberra, Australia ; Univ Badajos ; Univ Sevilla ; Jimenez Diaz Foundation, Madrid.

Our funding
ANR, France Alzheimer, FRC, IRESP, ExposUM (Université de Montpellier)

Lifetime development of neuropsychiatric disorders