Progetto Anosognosia and delusions in the diseased brain (UnaWireD)

What are the mechanisms underlying UNAwareness of disease (the so-called "Anosognosia") and Delusions?
How do such symptoms relate to each other in the brain diseases?
Do they arise from the brain damage itself or from the response of the spared brain to the damage?
Do they depend on how the brain is WIREd?
And can both of them be modulated, and potentially cured, by modulating the dopaminergic system in the brain?

UnaWireD will provide the first in-depth investigation of anosognosia and delusions in combination to test the hypothesis that they share common brain mechanisms. Although these symptoms impact significantly on a range of brain disorders, UnaWireD will focuses on Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), in which the difference between patients who show the most severe form of these symptoms and patients who never present them is striking yet largely unexplained.

By combining multimodal imaging with experimental paradigms and extended clinical and biomarker characterisation, UnaWireD will:

1) Establish whether anosognosia and delusions define a specific clinical subtype in AD;

2) Determine if they are associated with premorbid personality and cognitive abilities;

3) Identify the brain networks specifically altered in the anosognosia/delusion AD subtype;

4) Test if anosognosia is associated with an imbalance in the brain neurotransmitter dopamine.

UnaWireD will deliver a new framework to study the interplay between the spared and damaged brain in the origin of productive symptoms across neurological diseases. By doing so, it will open a window towards a better understanding of the uniquely human abilities of self-reflection and consciousness