Clinical Research Directory

Recovery in Telling Life Stories

This project tests the Recovery In Telling Life Stories (RETELL) intervention, aimed at supporting personal recovery in people with severe mental illness (SMI). While many of those with SMI experience symptom control, their quality of life often remains low due to social loss, negative self-perceptions, and identity-related challenges not addressed by standard treatments. Through a process of narrative repair, the RETELL intervention helps participants explore the personal consequences of mental illness while supporting the enhancement of narratives that strengthen identity and foster well-being. The intervention is delivered across 8-12 sessions and will be assessed for feasibility of both the intervention and study procedures. We will also explore its preliminary impact on recovery, quality of life, symptoms, functioning, self-stigma, and personality, using a multiple single-case A-B-A design. We expect the intervention and study procedures to show acceptable feasibility. We further hypothesize that participants' scores on recovery and well-being will be low at baseline, improve during the intervention, and remain higher after the intervention ends and at 3-month follow-up. This study will provide a foundation for future randomized controlled trials.

Biomarker Research in Inherited Movement Disorders

Inherited movement disorders are rare conditions, whose cumulative prevalence are in the order of 5-10/100,000 inhabitants, in most cases progressive and can lead to a significant loss of autonomy after one or more decades of evolution. They include spinocerebellar ataxias and hyperkinetic disorders (dystonias, choreas, tremor, parkinsonism and myoclonus with variable combination of those, or more complex alteration of movements). The existence of the National Reference Centre (CMR) for Rare Diseases (CMR Neurogenetics, devoted to ataxias and spastic paraparesis, dystonia and rare movement disorders and CMR Huntington, devoted to Huntington Disease) has allowed a more integrated vision of these diseases. This is illustrated, in the same family, by the occurrence of different clinical expressions of spinocerebellar ataxias and hyperkinetic disorders that share the same genetic background. Conversely, different causal mutations within the same gene may have very different ages at onset and a wide range of clinical expression, and the spectrum of new phenotypes linked to a single gene is still expanding . Many ataxia and dystonia genes are involved in similar pathways. There are numerous arguments supporting a share pathogenesis including synaptic transmission and neurodevelopment . BIOMOV project aims to : 1. establish the clinical spectrum and natural history of these diseases, 2. understand the role of genetic and familial factors on the phenotype, 3. elucidate the molecular basis of these disorders and evaluate diagnostic strategies involving molecular tools for clinical and genetic management, 4. develop multimodal biomarkers both for physiopathological studies and for accurate measures of disease progression, 5. develop trial ready cohorts of well characterized genetic patients, 6. test new therapies either symptomatic or based on pathophysiological mechanisms.