TS-EUROTRAIN · Interdisciplinary training network for Tourette Syndrome; structuring European Training capacities for neurodevelopmental disorders

There is a striking lack in structured and standardized training infrastructure for neurodevelopmental disorders across Europe. Such training will be fundamental to promoting standards of care across Europe and will ultimately lead to strategies for the promotion of childhood mental health in Europe. The focus of this Initial Training Network (ITN) is Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome (TS), an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder that provides an excellent paradigm for the study and training needs for neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood onset. TS is marked by multiple motor and vocal tics and high comorbidity rates with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. Due to lack of education of medical professionals, educators, and the general public, TS is underdiagnosed and patients are severely discriminated against. Efforts to elucidate the etiology and pathophysiology of TS are fragmented across Europe and hampered by low statistical power. Standards of care are not uniform due to lack in structured training modules for this disorder. We have built an comprehensive interdisciplinary and intersectorial training program in the field of TS and related disorders, that will deliver the next generation of young researchers who will shape the field in Europe and around the world. Their research within this ITN will lead to discoveries that will ultimately provide new therapies and increase the quality of life for patients and their families. At the same time, their engagement to society will increase awareness about the disorder in a pan-European effort to promote childhood mental health across Europe.