The mission of the Neurosciences Programme (NP) at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute is to support clinical research that will lead to a better understanding of mental and neurodegenerative illnesses and the development of novel therapeutic approaches. The combined basic and clinical investigations of research groups contribute to achieve program objectives.

The pathologies studied by the NP include:

• Addictions/substance abuse pharmacology

• Mental health (anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders)

• Chronic pain

• Intellectual disabilities/rare diseases

• Life style factors and cognitive decline and age-related metabolic comorbidities

• Epilepsy

The NP has several technological resources to carry out this mission:

• Animal models of diseases (intellectual disabilities, pain, affective and eating disorders, drug abuse, and state-of-the-art in vivo electrophysiology systems in freely-moving mice) to study the neurobiology of diseases, and the cognitive and affective responses to drugs or to other therapeutic approaches.

• Complex analyses of neural activity (big data).

• Clinical metabolomics (targeted metabolomics studies of neurotransmission systems, steroids and endocannabinoids and drug exposure)

• Neuroepithelial olfactory cells as proxy model of proneurons

• Neuroimaging techniques in humans

• Clinical Research Unit (accredited for Phase I studies by the Catalan Government)

General objectives

• To promote and support excellence in basic and clinical research, including co-morbidities with other health problems, and to provide opportunities for transversal and collaborative research with other IMIM research programs and Parc de Salut Mar clinical departments.

• To encourage multidisciplinary research, including the opportunities provided within the IMIM framework at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) in order to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and improve treatment and health services.

• To guarantee the promotion of holistic research among students and clinicians through their training in all aspects of neuroscience, mental health and addictions.

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