The CNR Clinical Physiology Institute (CNR), will be the unit participating in SensorART project. CNR carries out research activities in the field of cardiopulmonary and metabolic diseases. The presence, within the same environment of hospital units (wards, Coronary Care Unit, Catheterization Laboratory, Operating Room, and Out-patients), animal labs, technical departments, and advanced diagnostic instrumentation (Nuclear Medicine, Positron Emission Tomography, MRI, CTA) allows an integrated and multidisciplinary approach to medical and health research. Research is organized in 4 disciplinary sections: 1) Clinical and experimental medicine; 2) Molecular medicine, clinical biology and biochemistry; 3) Technosciences for medical applications and research; 4) Epidemiology and health service organization.
The Clinical and Experimental Medicine research area is dedicated to the study of coronary blood flow, cardiac metabolism, cardiovascular neural control, myocardial function and its integrated relationship with transmural perfusion. In the eighties CNR was assigned the leadership of the project “Breakdown in human adaptation to stress”, and in the nineties the participation to the Concerted Action on Heart Assist and Replacement (BIOMED I). Today CNR is one of the five centres of CARE-MAN (NMP4-CT-2006-017333, FP6) for the evaluation of the precision of the routine laboratory methods.
In the field of heart failure, the multidisciplinary competences allowed the participation to national studies: as Research Unit of the Italian Strategic Project Heart Failure (1998-2000), Operational Unit in Care-HF (Multicenter Resynchronization Study), Coordination Centre in MASC "Ambulatory monitoring in Heart Failure" with evaluation of Quality of Life and Personality Traits; contributor to RICAF (Italian Registry of genetic dilatative cardiomiopathies). The research spreads out from revascularization procedures in patients with heart failure to the role of coronary microvascular disease in the genesis of heart failure, by Positron Emission Tomography and/or nuclear medicine studies, as well as to neurocardiology, natriuretic peptides, thyroid-heart relationship, detection of lung water content by echocardiography, physical training, with the publication of numerous papers in peer review international journals.
Within CNR, the Bioengineering and Medical Informatics (BIM) Unit operating in the research area of techno-sciences for biomedicine, has the specific role of integrating multimodal and multiscale information, from molecular level up to patient medical data. The professional background and expertise of BIM research team cover: a) Clinical data management (data acquisition, archiving, processing and distribution, patient medical record, personal devices for ubiquitous monitoring and computing, data fusion, knowledge extraction, medical decision support), b) Bio-signal analysis with multimodal and multivariate approach (mathematical modelling, pattern recognition, nonlinear dynamics, time-frequency analysis, blind source separation). The BIM group has a history of strong involvement in many national and international activities, such as: international initiatives in medical informatics within the “Computers in Cardiology” association and the European Society of Cardiology; implementation and management of the “European ST-T ECG Data Base”, currently a world reference for the development and validation of dynamic ECG instrumentation; participation to EC programs in the areas BIOMED, AIM (KISS, TANIT), CEN/TC 251, IST; cooperation with national and international industries in projects of development and standardization of biomedical instrumentation; management of large clinical databases (IMAGE archive for ischemic heart diseases, from 1973).
Furthermore, by the acquired competence in Regulatory Affairs for the validation procedures of physical and chemical sensors and non invasive devices, the experimental group became in the Institute the reference group for sensor studies and applications also in man in different diseases. In particular, starting from the research projects on myocardial neuropsychic risk factors and autonomic drive in myocardial infarction, together with the duties and the experience on care and interventional cardiology of patients, in the field of basic research and human physiology, they developed the know-how of a multiparametric approach to the investigation of the heart-brain relationship as well as the evaluation of homeostasis and cardiovascular functions.
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