Preserving the Brain: LIRH Foundation joins Fondazione Prada's 'call to action'

“Preserving the Brain: A Call to Action” - part of the Human Brains project promoted by Fondazione Prada in 2018 - aims to focus on the importance of prevention and early treatment of widespread and still incurable diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Multiple Sclerosis. 

The initiative - which officially starts on October 16, 2024 and ends on April 7, 2025 - consists of a Scientific Conference, an Exhibition and a Series of Meetings on the main neurodegenerative diseases, organized by the five advocacy organizations involved, included LIRH Foundation. 

THE SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
“Prevention on Neurodegenerative Diseases”
October 16 -17, 2024

Under the scientific direction of Prof. Giancarlo Comi, the program was conceived in dialogue with the fifteen research institutes involved in the project. The conference is aimed at researchers, students and representatives of institutions in the medical and healthcare sector. Each day will be structured into four thematic sessions, each of which includes three interventions and a discussion between scientists and researchers. Each session will address a specific topic such as epidemiology, pollution, nutrition, sleep, protective factors, genes and other environmental factors, brain plasticity and secondary prevention. It will be possible to follow the event in streaming at the following link: httpshumanbrains.fondazioneprada.org/

THE EXHIBITION
16 October 2024 - 7 April 2025

Set up in the spaces of the North gallery of the Milan headquarters, the exhibition will investigate the main themes addressed in the conference sessions through scientific data and visual materials conceived by international researchers and graphically elaborated by the New York studio 2×4. The project will be divided into eight exhibition sections and a sharing space that will host mediation activities aimed at visitors.

The exhibition will first explore the territory of “primary” prevention, aimed at healthy subjects, in the absence of pathology, analyzing the spectrum of environmental factors that influence the onset of neurodegenerative diseases, behaviors and lifestyles potentially modifiable by healthy subjects for preventive purposes.

Subsequently, a large space will be dedicated to “secondary” prevention, relating to early diagnosis and aimed at slowing down the progression and containing symptoms.

MEETINGS
November 2024 - April 2025

A series of eight meetings, developed with the patient organizations and associations involved in the project, accompanies the exhibition from November 2024 to April 2025. The meetings are conceived with Michele Porcu and Mary Zurigo of Z.E.A. Zone di Esplorazione Artistica, a group of critical research and experimental design that investigates the various boundaries between art, design, architecture and other forms and languages of the contemporary, working particularly on fragility, supporting museum accessibility, social inclusion and artistic mediation, in projects such as “alzhalarte.” The meetings include guided tours of the exhibition and the other projects of Fondazione Prada for patients and caregivers, moments of dialogue with young people and students, panels, roundtables, theatrical performances, workshops, and film screenings. 

ABOUT HUNTINGTON DISEASE

For the first time in such an important context, Huntington's disease (HD) will be given attention through:

# A scientific poster on  HD prevention, by Ferdinando Squitieri, which will be present in the exhibition area of ​​the Conference and Exhibition for the entire duration of the initiative (October - April);

# Printed and multimedia information material from the Fondazione Lega Italiana Ricerca Huntington present in the exhibition area of the Fondazione Prada for the entire duration of the initiative (October - April);

# A workshop on Huntington's disease, organized by the LIRH Foundation, which will be held on February 13, 2025 at the headquarters of the Fondazione Prada in Milan.

Huntington's Disease. A journey through generations, between prediction, prevention and stereotypes
Workshop by Fondazione LIRH
Milan, February 13, 2025
5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Guided tours will be organized before the workshop. 
More information will be available soon. 
For those interested in participating, please write to info@lirh.it

Why this is about neurodegenerative diseases:
Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by a series of modifiable risk factors whose correction would have enormous consequences at an individual and collective level. To protect ourselves from the growing spread of these diseases, it is therefore necessary to intervene first on the modifiable risk factors, take care of the environment, promote adequate lifestyles, implement educational activities, involve all the subjects of society and political institutions.
For this reason, “Preserving the Brain: A Call to Action” will see the participation of the most relevant research centers, scholars, patient associations and organizations that operate in the brain health sector, as well as representatives of the institutions.
The main objectives are the productive comparison between the different actors to give rise to the promotion of specific actions in the field of modifiable factors of neurodegenerative diseases, until reaching a real “call to action” addressed to a large population, especially the younger one.
“These diseases have roots that go back a long way and that we have only recently begun to discover. It is almost always the sum of various roots nourished by genetic and environmental factors that generate the pathology. Prevention, that is, the identification of these roots, can allow us to block the consequences. We plant some of these roots ourselves, which is why individuals must have a direct role in the prevention process. This involves an active role of the person not only at the time of the disease, but also in preventing it. The scientific exhibition created with methods that make the contents understandable to the entire public and the meetings conceived in collaboration with patient organizations and associations have the very objective of involving the entire community in all its articulations in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases.” - stated Prof. Giancarlo Comi, Scientific Director of the project.

Research Institutes involved in the project: 
Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases, Boston, United States; 
Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Sorbonne University AP-HP, Neurology department and Paris Brain Institute, Paris, France; 
UniSR – Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy; 
Juntendo University Hospital, Neurology Department, Tokyo, Japan; 
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 
German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) within the Helmholtz Association, Bonn, Germany; 
Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Munich, Germany; 
Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill Research and Teaching Institute, Canada; 
Multiple Sclerosis Centre of Catalonia, Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain; 
Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Neurology Department, Tianjin, China; 
UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, United States; 
University College London, United Kingdom; University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Weizmann Institute of Science, Revohot, Israel;
Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, United States. 

Advocacy Organizations involved in the project:
AIMA Associazione Italiana Malattia di Alzheimer 
AISM Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla 
AISLA – Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Laterale Amiotrofica 
AriSLA – Fondazione Italiana di ricerca per la Sclerosi Laterale Amiotrofica 
Confederazione Parkinson Italia
Fondazione LIRH Lega Italiana Ricerca Huntington 

You can download the official dossier of the initiative (both in Italian and English) and the summary of the scientific conference program.