April 2013 - Page 2 of 2 - Inserm Newsroom

The i-Share (Internet-based Students HeAlth Research Enterprise) study, the only one of its type in the world, intends to monitor the state of health of 30 000 students over a period of 10 years. It will provide precious information on the state of health of students, to ensure better management of the health system for this population. This cohort study is being carried out by Inserm, the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and the Université de Bordeaux. In order to recruit the panel of students required for this study, the universities of Bordeaux and Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines are running a recruitment campaign using tools with which these young people are already familiar: websites, mobile applications, social network sites, etc. I-Share will also serve as a platform for biomedical research projects and for testing prevention strategies.

©fotolia

The i-Share study, investing for the future

There are over two million students in France. A population that is exposed to pathologies that could cause serious complications, such as depression and the risk of suicide, or disrupt their daily life and studies, such as migraine. Their behaviour during their student years can have both immediate effects (such as accidents due to binge drinking), and more long-term effects on chronic diseases (cancers, cardiovascular diseases).

The best way to study the health problems of students and find the solutions is to set up and monitor a large-scale cohort study. This is the goal of the i-Share study, which is one of the winning projects in the “Investissements d’avenir” (Investing for the Future) programme. The i-Share study wishes to monitor the state of health of 30 000 young adults over a period of 10 years. Its aim is to explore the risk factors of diseases in this population, for which we currently have very little available information.

The project is targeting four major pathological themes in particular: migraine, mental health, infections, risky behaviour and accidents

By providing accurate data on the frequency and consequences of certain diseases and infections, eating habits, the consumption of medication…

I-Share will help to fill in the missing data on young adults and will provide an overall picture of the state of health and wellbeing of students

The study will also provide the opportunity of testing prevention or medical care strategies to help with public health planning. Finally, this large-scale epidemiological cohort will serve as a platform to study the determinants and the mechanisms of diseases, through collaboration with other fields of biomedical research.

Efficient recruitment needs the use of student-friendly tools

I-share.fr, a website giving information about the study

In order to recruit and keep in contact with the 30 000 students, the i-Share.fr site was launched in mid-February 2013. The questionnaire on the i-Share.fr site concerns health, living habits, social and family environment and is the first step in the cohort enrolment process. I-Share.fr also centralizes all data relating to the cohort: type and progress of studies, goals, research themes, etc. The contents will be enriched by articles, photos and videos.

Development on social network sites

Much importance is given to exchanges, expression of feelings and experiences based on the subject of health. The participants will also be asked to attend various events and in general, to communicate on the cohort Twitter or Facebook sites to participate in the community.

Relay students

The relay students will be equipped with tablets and will go around meeting other students and introducing them to the missions of the i-Share cohort and encourage them to take part in this study.

Scientific collaboration

i-Share.fr will also be the space dedicated to publishing the results of the study as it progresses. The description of the data and how to access them by external researchers will help collaboration with i-Share, which is an open study.

I-Share is managed by top ranking researchers and academics, all with experience of large-scale cohort studies. Several of them are classed in the top 1% of world researchers with citations of their works. Their research teams will be recognized as excellent (grade A/A+) by the French Research and Higher Education Assessment Agency (AERES).

Improving neurone production in elderly persons presenting with a decline in cognition is a major challenge facing an ageing society and the emergence of neuro-degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. INSERM and CEA researchers recently showed that the pharmacological blocking of the TGFβ molecule improves the production of new neurones in the mouse model. These results incentivise the development of targeted therapies enabling improved neurone production to alleviate cognitive decline in the elderly and reduce the cerebral lesions caused by radiotherapy.

The research is published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.

©L Simonneau/Inserm

New neurones are formed regularly in the adult brain in order to guarantee that all our cognitive capacities are maintained. This neurogenesis may be adversely affected in various situations and especially:

– in the course of ageing,
– after radiotherapy treatment of a brain tumour. (The irradiation of certain areas of the brain is, in fact, a central adjunctive therapy for brain tumours in adults and children).

According to certain studies, the reduction in our “stock” of neurones contributes to an irreversible decline in cognition. In the mouse, for example, researchers reported that exposing the brain to radiation in the order of 15 Gy[1] is accompanied by disruption to the olfactive memory and a reduction in neurogenesis. The same happens in ageing in which a reduction in neurogenesis is associated with a loss of certain cognitive faculties. In patients receiving radiotherapy due to the removal of a brain tumour, the same phenomena can be observed.

Researchers are studying how to preserve the “neurone stock”. To do this, they have tried to discover which factors are responsible for the decline in neurogenesis.

Contrary to what might have been believed, their initial observations show that neither heavy doses of radiation nor ageing are responsible for the complete disappearance of the neural stem cells capable of producing neurones (and thus the origin of neurogenesis). Those that survive remain localised in a certain small area of the brain (the sub-ventricular zone (SVZ)). They nevertheless appear not to be capable of working correctly.

Additional experiments have made it possible to establish that in both situations, irradiation and ageing, high levels of the cytokine[2] TGFβ cause the stem cells to become dormant, increasing their susceptibility to apoptosis (PCD) and reducing the number of new neurones.

“Our study concluded that although neurogenesis reduced in ageing and after a high dose of radiation, many stem cells survive for several months, retaining their ‘stem’ characteristics”, explains Marc-Andre Mouthon, one of the main authors of the research, that was conducted in conjunction with José Piñeda and François Boussin.

The second part of the project demonstrated that pharmacological blocking of TGFβ restores the production of new neurones in irradiated or ageing mice.

For the researchers, these results will encourage the development of targeted therapies to block TGFβ in order to reduce the impact of brain lesions caused by radiotherapy and improving the production of neurones in the elderly presenting with a cognitive decline.

[1] Molecule synthetised by immune system cells that is essential for communication between cells.

[2] The radiotherapy dosage received by living tissue is measured in grays (Gy): 1Gy corresponds to a transfer of 1 joule per 1 kilogram of matter.

Inserm Newsroom - Press room of the French national institute of health and medical research

Month: April 2013

The health of 30 000 students to be monitored over 10 years

(French) Les enfants de la cohorte Elfe fêtent déjà leur deuxième anniversaire !

Producing new neurones under all circumstances: a challenge that is just a mouse away ….

Researchers are studying how to preserve the “neurone stock”. To do this, they have tried to discover which factors are responsible for the decline in neurogenesis.

The second part of the project demonstrated that pharmacological blocking of TGFβ restores the production of new neurones in irradiated or ageing mice.