ESC_TO_AITION Press Release Marks World Mental Health

On 13 October 2025, following World Mental Health Day (10 October), our partner European Society of Cardiology (ESC) published an official press release highlighting key findings and outcomes of the EU-funded TO_AITION project. The release underscores the growing evidence linking cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mental health, and the need for integrated approaches to prevention, diagnosis, and care.

The ESC press release emphasises that depression affects more than 300 million people worldwide and increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, as well as related mortality, by two to three times. It highlights that one in three patients with CVD experiences depression, while one in two develops depressive symptoms following major cardiac events. Despite this strong bidirectional relationship, cardiovascular disease and mental health conditions are still most often managed separately in clinical practice.

Against this background, the press release presents TO_AITION as a multi-partner European project that addresses this long-standing gap. Funded by the European Union, TO_AITION investigates the biological, immune, and metabolic mechanisms that link inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and depression. Using advanced biological and analytical techniques, including artificial intelligence, the project aims to identify shared pathways and biomarkers that can support improved prevention, prognosis, and therapy.

The ESC also highlights one of the project’s major achievements to date: the development and demonstration of the TO_AITION cloud-based risk stratification platform, presented during ESC Congress 2025 in Madrid. The web-accessible platform is designed to support diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment decision-making for patients with CVD–depression comorbidity, and is intended for use by cardiologists, psychiatrists, mental health professionals, caregivers, and industry stakeholders.

The press release further notes that TO_AITION has delivered important integrative analyses revealing shared disease pathways, identified candidate causal molecules underpinning multimorbidity, developed a lab-on-chip prototype for rapid biomarker assessment, and established new preclinical models specifically designed to study CVD-depression comorbidity.

Aligned with the message of World Mental Health Day, the ESC press release reinforces TO_AITION’s core vision: that mental and physical health are inseparable, and that meaningful progress in cardiovascular care depends on understanding and addressing mental health alongside it.

Read the full press release here: https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases/to_aition-project-uncovers-links-between-cardiovascular-disease-and-mental-healt