environMENTAL

Reducing the impact of major environmental challenges on mental health

environMENTAL is an EU-funded project, studying the impact of climate, pollution, urbanicity, regional socioeconomic conditions, as well as the Covid19 pandemic on brain health, and characterize its underlying biological mechanisms. We will analyse data from more than one million European citizens and patients to uncover brain mechanisms linked to environmental adversity and leading to
symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress and substance abuse.

News

General Assembly Meeting in Faro, Portugal

General Assembly Meeting in Faro, Portugal

From 17-19 March 2025, the environMENTAL project brought together 42 participants for a productive General Assembly meeting in Faro, Portugal! Despite the bad weather, we had an amazing time full of insightful discussions, innovative research, and lots of fun! Here’s...

read more

Events

Participate in the project

Digital prevention and early intervention are important targets in non-pharmacological treatment. environMENTAL will pursue two parallel approaches, developing a mental health app and virtual reality interventions to reduce the impact of significant environmental challenges on human well-being.

StreetMind
Environment and the brain

StreetMind

Contribute to a better understanding of how the environment influences mental health

Consensus Conference

Your opportunity to shape the course of research

Seminars

The environMENTAL seminar series was established to inform our stakeholders about the environMENTAL project targets and to create a platform of active discussion and knowledge exchange.  

From Restoring Movement to Mental Health: The Next Frontier of Brain-Computer Interfaces

Abstract:

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have demonstrated remarkable success in restoring movement by translating neural activity into control signals for external devices. These advances provide a foundation for extending BCIs beyond the motor domain, toward the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. More than one billion people worldwide suffer from conditions such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), addiction, and dementia, yet effective, side effect-free treatments remain scarce. A major challenge lies in linking neuroimaging findings on cortical and subcortical metabolism to the dynamic oscillatory processes that govern brain function. Recent developments in neurotechnology open new possibilities for precise, non-invasive neuromodulation. Brain state-dependent magnetic stimulation could enable selective modulation of deep brain structures, but current methods are limited by stimulation artifacts, insufficient focality, and inadequate temporal resolution. By combining quantum sensor technology with temporally precise neuromodulation, these barriers can be overcome. However, such neurotechnological tools must be embedded within a holistic treatment concept that integrates complementary approaches, such as digital health applications and psychosocial interventions. This aligns with the broader framework of psychotechnology, which emphasizes the interplay of neurotechnology, digital therapeutics, and contextual factors in shaping mental health outcomes. This lecture will present the state of the art in BCIs and non-invasive neuromodulation, illustrating how the principles of motor BCIs can be leveraged for neuropsychiatric applications. Future directions include real-time brain state assessment and closed-loop stimulation strategies, integrated into a broader psychotechnology ecosystem, to transform treatment paradigms for mental health disorders.

Biography:

Surjo R. Soekadar, MD, is Einstein Professor of Clinical Neurotechnology and leads the Center of Neuromodulation at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. From 2009 – 2011, he was fellow at the Human Cortical Physiology and Stroke Neurorehabilitation Section (HCPS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. After his return to Germany, he became head of the Applied Neurotechnology Lab at the University of Tübingen, where he also served as senior consultant in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. His research interests include cortical plasticity in the context of brain-computer interface (BCI) applications, non-invasive neuromodulation and neural mechanisms of learning and memory. He and his team demonstrated for the first time that patients with high cervical spinal cord injury and complete finger paralysis can eat and drink independently using a non-invasive brain/neural-controlled hand exoskeleton in an outside restaurant. Dr. Soekadar received various prizes such as the NIH-DFG Research Career Transition Award (2009), the NIH Fellows’ Award for Research Excellence (2011), the International BCI Research Award 2012, and the Biomag 2014 and NARSAD 2017 Young Investigator Awards. Besides an ERC Starting Grant to develop the next-generation brain/neural-interfaces for restoration of brain functions, he also received an ERC Proof-of-Concept and Consolidator Grant dealing with closed-loop neuromodulation and the development of a bidirectional quantum-BCI.

Challenges and opportunities for drug discovery in mental disorders

There is an undisputed need for better therapies addressing mental illnesses. However, despite major advances in the understanding of the molecular basis of disorders such as depression, anxiety schizo­phrenia and autism in the past decades, efforts to discover and develop new drugs for neuropsychiatric disorders have remained relatively unsuccessful. The disappointments can be traced to failures in the target identification and target validation effort, as reflected by the poor ability of current cellular and animal models to predict efficacy and side-effects. Here will I discuss how patient-based disease mod­elling can be implemented in the early drug discovery process as a crucial component in addressing current problems.

Implementation of a patient-derived disease model of Phelan McDermid Syndrome for the identification of SHANK3-specific chemical modifiers

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental disorders which complicates the identification of an effective therapeutic solution. More than 75 % of people suffering from Phelan McDermid Syndrome (PMS) exhibits ASD symptoms. This rare disease is due to a dele­tion/alteration in chromosome chromosome 22 (22q13) leading to a haploinsufficiency of SHANK3 expression. SHANK3 encodes a scaffolding protein in the postsynaptic density of excitatory synapses. A reduced expression of SHANK3 leads to an alteration in neuron morphology and synapse connectivity via unknown mechanism.
After the identification of a developmental hyperdifferentiation phenotype in patient-derived iPS cells during the first 6-14 days of differentiation into glutamatergic neurons, a fully automated process was developed allowing us to perform a >7000 molecules screening to reverse hyperdifferentiation. Valida­tion of identified hit compounds was performed in a synaptic imaging assay after 28 days of differentia­tion. In summary, we performed phenotypic screening using specific pathological hallmarks of a neuro­developmental disease in patient-derived of cells.

EBRAINS user engagement

Our twin goals:

  • the scientific work of the Human Brain Project(HBP)
  • the ongoing development of the state-of-the art Research Infrastructure for brain studie: France Nivelle, Chief Communications and Content Officer, EBRAINS

environMENTAL Methodological approaches for MRI data integration biomarker discovery and validation within the environmental project

In this talk, I will give an overview of the analytical strategy we will employ for biomarker discovery in the environMENTAL project. To find generalisable biomarkers to predict and stratify mental disorders, we will need to solve many methodological challenges including how to meaningfully aligning data from heterogeneous cohorts spanning the whole lifespan, fusing data from modalities with very different characteristics, accounting for complex patterns of missing data and extracting generalisable and interpretable low dimensional representations from complex datasets.
Moreover, many of these analyses need to be performed in a decentralised and distributed manner. I will give an overview of some of the analytical techniques that we will employ to solve these challenges, including federated machine learning techniques, normative modelling, deep learning, transfer learning and classical penalised multivariate regression techniques. I will illustrate by discussing in detail how such techniques can be applied to neuroimaging data but it should be remembered that they are all more widely applicable.

The environMENTAL Team

an interdisciplinary team of excellence

Driving a highly innovative and interdisciplinary approach, the project teams the ideas and expertise of neuroscientists, psychiatrists, geo-scientists, climatologists, psychologists, epidemiologists, anthropologists, computer scientists, experts in digital interventions as well as non-academic stakeholders such as patient associations.
The consortium will be supported by a Stakeholder Board, which will advise on ethical and societal questions to ensure a responsible research and innovation programme.

The environMENTAL Team

environMENTAL Newsletter

About environMENTAL

Find out the latest news about environMENTAL and register for our newsletter!

News

Online Seminar Prof. Surjo Soedekar – From Restoring Movement to Mental Health: The Next Frontier of Brain-Computer Interfaces (24 June 2025)

From Restoring Movement to Mental Health: The Next Frontier of Brain-Computer Interfaces Speaker: Prof. Surjo Soedekar Dept. of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, Charite University Medicine Berlin, Germany Date: 24 June 2025, 10.00am CET/4.00pm CST Link:...

General Assembly Meeting in Faro, Portugal

From 17-19 March 2025, the environMENTAL project brought together 42 participants for a productive General Assembly meeting in Faro, Portugal! Despite the bad weather, we had an amazing time full of insightful discussions, innovative research, and lots of fun! Here’s...
environMENTAL

Join the Expert by Experience (EbE) Board of the environMENTAL Project!

Are you passionate about mental health? Have you or someone close to you experienced mental health challenges, particularly those influenced by environmental stressors like climate change, urbanisation, or the pandemic? If so, we invite you to become part of an...

Summer School on environment, brain and mental health

🌍 Thanks to all who participanted in the environMENTAL Summer School on Environment, Brain and Mental Health! 🧠We had an insightful three days, ranging from virtual reality in mental health, to machine learning, to urban structure mapping, to support in paper...

PRESS RELEASE – Springer Nature Group and EU-funded environMENTAL project launch and inform about the new “Earth, Brain, Health Commission”

We are delighted to share our latest press release, announcing the launch of the new "Earth, Brain, Health Commission" by the Springer Nature Group (Nature Mental Health) in collaboration with the EU-funded environMENTAL project.We believe this commission will...

Join us for the Summer School on environment, brain and mental health

Are you a student or early career researcher interested in gaining a greater understanding on how environmental challenges affect mental health? Then join us for the Summer School on environment, brain and mental health, jointly organised by the Nature ‘Earth Brain...
Reports

Outcomes of the environMENTAL Consensus Conference

The environMENTAL project is thrilled to share the key outcomes from the recently concluded environMENTAL Consensus Conference (CC). This milestone event has provided invaluable insights and guidance that will shape our ongoing and future research on the intricate...
Reports

Replace, Reduce, Refine!

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) supports the implementation of the 3Rs principle  - replace, reduce and refine - for the ethical use of animals in medicine testing across the European Union (EU) (Ethical use of animals in medicine testing | European Medicines...

Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

Climate change, although increasingly evident, often feels abstract and distant to Western populations. Yet, rising temperatures, extreme weather, and sea level rises are already causing significant damage and loss of life globally. The World Economic Forum recognizes...

WP3 Update on StreetMind Blog

We are happy to announce that the StreetMind Blog and our review article was accepted in Current Opinion in Psychiatry and is published now. Click here to find out more about the loop between environment, brain and mental health.