10/06/2020 - General information
The Director of the Addictions Process Group within the Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Addictions at the Hospital del Mar (INAD) and a researcher at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) has participated in the drafting of this document, which analyses the different treatments and establishes the standards of use for the entire world. The guide was presented in March at the 63rd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 2020, held at the United Nations Office in Vienna. In March, the United Nations, through its Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the World Health Organisation (WHO), jointly approved the first International standards for the treatment of drug use disorders. This document was written with the assistance of leading experts in this field, including Dr. Marta Torrens, Director of the Addictions Process Group at INAD and coordinator of the Addictions Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM). Dr. Torrens is the only author from Spain.
28/05/2020 - Covid-19
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are far reaching and long lasting for people working in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in terms of people's wellbeing and mental health and the social and economic impacts. he EU-funded large-scale Mental Health Promotion and Intervention in Occupational Settings project began in January 2020. The project aims to improve mental health and wellbeing in the workplace by developing, implementing and evaluating a multilevel intervention targeting both prevalent psychiatric disorders (depression, anxiety disorders) and non-clinical aspects of mental health (stress, burnout, wellbeing, depressive symptoms).
04/05/2020 - Press release
A team of researchers led by Dr. Victoria Puig from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), which also involved the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), has studied the neural basis of intellectual disability in mice with Down syndrome and has discovered that the neural networks of brain circuits relevant to memory and learning are over-activated and that the connectivity of these circuits is poor. The researchers have also observed that neural activity during sleep is abnormal and probably interferes with memory consolidation. The study has even identified biomarkers in brain rhythms that can predict memory deficits in the mice which are corrected by chronic treatment with a natural component of green tea, epigallocatechin gallate, which other studies have already shown to improve executive function in adults with Down syndrome.
Més informació "New therapeutic targets for treating memory impairment in Down syndrome"
24/04/2020 - Press release
Up to now, it was not known what happened in the human body after maslinic acid and oleanolic acid were consumed in diet-compatible quantities, in other words, what happened from the moment they were ingested until their total elimination from the body, what is referred to as pharmacokinetics. Furthermore, information on the biological activity of these biomolecules in the human body is very scarce in the scientific literature. Using a method for determining oleanolic and maslinic acids in plasma developed by the Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), and the Barcelona Mar Health Park Consortium node of the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn) network, as part of the NUTRAOLEUM research project, a clinical trial on humans has evaluated the pharmacokinetics of these two triterpenic acids from the olive tree after the ingestion of olive oils enriched in these biomolecules at two different concentrations. In addition, the effect of these triterpenic acids on endothelial function has also been studied, revealing that they contribute to preserving blood vessel health and preventing arteriosclerosis.
Més informació "Biomolecules from olive oil may have beneficial effects on blood vessel health"
The IMIM Clinical Metabolomics Platform led by Dr. Oscar J. Pozo, from the IMIM Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience Research Group, has become part of the EATRIS consortium, the European infrastructure for translational medicine, as part of the biomarker platform. This means that the IMIM is now part of a consortium comprising more than 80 prestigious European institutes that is aiming to establish synergies between healthcare researchers by providing them with the most advanced technologies and the experience needed to make headway in translational medicine. EATRIS is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) whose main objective is to advance translational medicine. Translational research is a highly multidisciplinary and complex undertaking. One of the greatest challenges in innovation is to understand which steps are necessary and the most appropriate technology and knowledge for taking these steps.
19/06/2019 - Press release
Researchers from the UAB and the IMIM published in Scientific Reports the first evidence in a non-human species, the domestic dog, of a relation between joint hypermobility and excitability: dogs with more joint mobility and flexibility tend to have more anxiety problems. The relation between collagen laxity and anxiety in humans is widely known, but this relation has never been observed before in other species. A team of researchers led by professors Jaume Fatjó and Antoni Bulbena from the Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine at the UAB, the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) and the UAB Affinity Foundation Chair in Animals and Health, analysed a set of 13 animal behaviour characteristics and hip joint mobility in a total of 5575 domestic dogs. The results point to an association between hip joint hypermobility and a brain activation linked to emotions in dogs, with similar results as to those observed in people.
Més informació "Joint Hypermobility Related to Anxiety, Also in Animals"
19/03/2018 - Press release
Dr. Rafael de la Torre, director of the Neurosciences research programme at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), is leading a clinical trial involving a paediatric population, the aim of which is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a dietary preparation containing epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) – a natural compound found in green tea- on improved cognitive development in children, aged 6 to 12, with Down's syndrome, and which will also evaluate its effect on children with Fragile X syndrome. The paediatric clinical trials will take place simultaneously in 5 health centres: Hospital Niño Jesús (Madrid), Instituto Hispalense de Pediatria (Seville), Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla (Santander), Hospital del Mar ( Barcelona), and Institut Jérome Lejeune (Paris).
19/12/2016 - Press release
A study directed by researchers from the UAB and IMIM are the first to reveal how pregnancy causes long-lasting alterations in brain structure, probably related to improving the mother’s ability to protect and interact with the child. The research was published in Nature Neuroscience. Pregnancy involves radical hormone surges and biological adaptations, but the effects on the brain are still unknown. In this study a team of researchers compared the structure of the brain of women before and after their first pregnancy. This is the first research to show that pregnancy involves long-lasting changes – at least for two years post-partum – in the morphology of a woman's brain. Using magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists have been able to show that the brains of women who have undergone a first pregnancy present significant reductions in grey matter in regions associated with social cognition.
Més informació "Pregnancy Leads to Changes in the Mother’s Brain"
07/06/2016 - Press release
A team of scientists led by doctors Rafael de la Torre at Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) and Mara Dierssen at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) have shown that epigallocatechin gallate together with a cognitive stimulation protocol, might improve some cognitive domains in individuals with Down’s syndrome. The results of the phase 2 study will be published on 6th June in the prestigious journal The Lancet Neurology. The findings suggest that participants who had received the treatment had better scores in the visual memory recognition and inhibition tasks, and improvement in adaptive behaviour than those in the control group (placebo and cognitive training). Though not a cure, this is the first time that a treatment has shown some effectiveness in this syndrome, and it opens the door to new research geared towards treating what was believed to be orphan of treatment.
Més informació "Clinical trial opens new avenues for pharmacological therapy in Down’s syndrome"
26/05/2016 - Events
Researchers from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) have, for the first time, demonstrated that measurements of a tobacco-specific nitrosamine in the hair, NNK, correlate with the real risk of exposure to the carcinogens in tobacco smoke in passive smokers. This substance is a much better biomarker than any of the markers measured up to now for assessing this risk and it has been found in higher concentrations in the hair than any other tobacco-specific carcinogen. The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers at the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and has been published in the journal Scientific Reports. The smoke passive smokers are exposed to differs from the smoke of smokers. Passive smokers are exposed to a lot of chemicals resulting from the combustion of the cigarette, but in addition, certain substances have gone through various activation reactions, making them carcinogenic.
Més informació "Biomarker discovered that measures the risk of cancer in non-smokers"
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