NoTremor

The project NoTremor “Virtual, Physiological and Computational Neuromuscular Models for the Predictive Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease” is a EU FP7-ICT funded project. The project started on the 1st of January 2014 and will last for 36 months. NoTremor aims to provide patient specific computational models of the coupled brain and neuromuscular systems that will be subsequently used to improve the quality of analysis, prediction and progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD). In particular, it aspires to establish the neglected link between brain modelling and neuromuscular systems that will result in a holistic representation of the physiology for PD patients. A significant breakthrough of NoTremor is that these models will not be used for abstract representation of the physiology or as a match between theory and clinical measurements. On the contrary, they will be used with a totally new perspective; predictive simulation. NoTremor will integrate computational models of the basal ganglia and brainstem into a unique multi-scale parametric computational model that can be subsequently simulated in the NoTremor simulation engine in a physics-based manner. NoTremor will revolutionize research in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative movement disorders and provide a novel approach for their analysis founded on a solid computational modelling basis that links midbrain degenerations to motor behaviour. The computational models will be quantified and validated through test campaigns with a very large cohort of PD patients. The impact of such a ground-breaking approach is huge and the foundations laid here are expected to result in a widespread adoption of predictive simulation not only in PD, but also in other neurodegenerative diseases. The ultimate challenging use of the NoTremor developments will be from the one side clinical decision support and from the other side the investigation, virtual prototyping and testing of new drugs using virtual patient models.

Consortium

Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece
The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom
University of Patras, Greece
Parkinson’s Disease Society of the United Kingdom LBG (Parkinson’s UK), United Kingdom
Universita degli Studi di Trento, Italy
The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
UCB Pharma SA, Belgium