The heart-brain axis: a single network – introducing/decoding the Dorian Gray Project

With Dipak Kotecha, University of Birmingham, Birmingham - UK and Franck Perraudin, Industry Lead, France. How can we make European cities healthier and reduce inequalities in cardiovascular health?   In this podcast, Dipak Kotecha, Project Director of Cities@Heart, and Franck Perraudin, Industry Lead, discuss the vision behind Cities@Heart and how a city-based approach can help tackle cardiovascular disease across Europe.   They explore the importance of prevention, early detection and improved management of cardiovascular disease, highlighting the role of collaboration between academia, healthcare professionals, industry partners, policymakers and local communities.

With Riccardo Proietti, University of Liverpool, Liverpool - UK and Matthias Endres, German Heart Centre Berlin, Berlin - Germany. The heart and brain communicate constantly, influencing everything from emotions to disease progression. Yet, medicine has often treated them as separate systems. In this episode, we challenge that paradigm by exploring the heart-brain axis as a unified network—one that holds the key to understanding conditions like heart failure, takotsubo syndrome, stroke-heart syndrome, and dementia. We'll also introduce the Dorian Gray Project, an ambitious European research effort that seeks to turn this dialogue into clinical practice. How can AI, biomarkers, and digital health tools help us monitor this interaction? What role physical exercise plays in restoring the communication into this network? And how might this project change the way we treat patients? Tune in to discover how science is bridging the gap between these two vital organs—and what it means for the future of medicine.

With Pim Van der Harst, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen - Netherlands and Marcos Gallego Llorente, IE University Madrid, Madrid - Spain. This podcast episode explores the challenges of turning clinical recommendations into everyday practice and how care pathway mapping can help identify bottlenecks, highlight promising practices, and uncover opportunities for improvement across healthcare systems. It also reflects on EuroHeartPath's achievements during its first year, including key milestones, lessons learned and the development of care pathway maps across Europe.

With Cindy Birck, Alzheimer Europe a.s.b.l., Senningerberg - Luxembourg, Laura Ziccardi, Sapienza University of Rome, Sant'Andrea University Hospital, Rome - Italy and Sergi Borrego, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Barcelona - Spain.  Dementia encompasses a wide range of diseases, each with different symptoms, causes and challenges. This episode explores the diversity of dementia and the importance of early and accurate detection. Featuring the EU-funded DORIAN GRAY and PREDICT-FTD projects, the episode highlights how European research is developing innovative approaches to improve prediction, support prevention and advance diagnosis.

With Cristian Izquierdo Morcillo, University of Barcelona, Barcelona - Spain, Robert Mikulik, Chair, Neurology Department, Regional Hospital Zlín; Director of Stroke Research Program, St. Anne's University Hospital - Czech Republic and Guido Bertolini, Head of Department of Epidemiology, Mario Negri Institute, Milan - Italy. This two-part podcast series introduces the InToEHR cluster, a group of Horizon Europe projects developing innovative tools for the use and reuse of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in cardiology, emergency medicine, and stroke care. Experts from DataTools4Heart, eCREAM, and RES-Q+ discuss how they are moving from "data chaos" to AI-ready data through multilingual NLP, automated extraction, and semantic enrichment. The discussion highlights strategies for reducing clinical workload and ensuring that new technologies are ethical, sustainable, and compliant with the emerging European Health Data Space (EHDS). Listeners will gain insight into how these collaborative efforts are responsibly turning routine clinical data into smarter, safer patient care.

With Cristian Izquierdo Morcillo, University of Barcelona, Barcelona - Spain, Robert Mikulik, Chair, Neurology Department, Regional Hospital Zlín; Director of Stroke Research Program, St. Anne's University Hospital - Czech Republic and Guido Bertolini, Head of Department of Epidemiology, Mario Negri Institute, Milan - Italy. This two-part podcast series introduces the InToEHR cluster, a group of Horizon Europe projects developing innovative tools for the use and reuse of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in cardiology, emergency medicine, and stroke care. Experts from DataTools4Heart, eCREAM, and RES-Q+ discuss how they are moving from "data chaos" to AI-ready data through multilingual NLP, automated extraction, and semantic enrichment. The discussion highlights strategies for reducing clinical workload and ensuring that new technologies are ethical, sustainable, and compliant with the emerging European Health Data Space (EHDS). Listeners will gain insight into how these collaborative efforts are responsibly turning routine clinical data into smarter, safer patient care.

With Paul Dendale, Hasselt University, Hasselt - Belgium and Reijo Laaksonen, Tampere University, Tampere - Finland. In this CoroPrevention podcast episode, Paul Dendale speaks with Reijo Laaksonen about ceramides as cardiovascular risk biomarker. They discuss the science behind ceramides, how these lipid molecules are linked to heart disease, and how ceramide testing may help improve risk prediction and prevention strategies in clinical practice.

With Dimitrios Fotiadis and Katerina Naka, University of Ioannina, Ioannina - Greece In this CARDIOCARE podcast episode, Dimitrios Fotiadis speaks with cardiologist Katerina Naka about cardiotoxicity in elderly breast cancer patients and how multi-source information can transform early detection. They discuss how clinical data, biomarkers, wearables, psychological assessments, and lifestyle indicators come together to give clinicians a complete view of patient health, enabling faster interventions and more personalised care.

With Antonis Sakellarios, University Hospital of Patras, Rio-Patras - Greece and Evangelos Andreakos, Academy of Athens Biomedical Research Foundation, Athens - Greece. In this episode, Antonis Sakellarios speaks with Evangelos Andreakos, exploring the growing scientific and clinical evidence that cardiovascular disease (CVD) and depression are deeply intertwined, not isolated conditions. The conversation underlines why treating these conditions in isolation may limit patient outcomes and introduces innovative approaches, such as integrated risk stratification tools that support both cardiovascular and mental health care.

With Antonis Sakellarios, University Hospital of Patras, Rio-Patras - Greece and Evangelos Andreakos, Academy of Athens Biomedical Research Foundation, Athens - Greece. In this episode, Antonis Sakellarios speaks with Evangelos Andreakos, presenting the key outputs and breakthroughs of the TO_AITION project and highlighting how research on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and depression comorbidities is being translated into practical tools and strategies. The conversation emphasises the development of innovative platforms for identifying individuals at risk of both CVD and depression, as well as collaborative disease network analyses and experimental models that reveal shared biological pathways linking the heart and brain.  Antonis Sakellarios and Evangelos Andreakos also underscore how these findings support evidence-based, holistic approaches to patient care, demonstratinga how integrated, multidisciplinary strategies can improve long-term health.