Welcome to the Unhide™ Project. The first online and ongoing clinical research study of its kind.

Brain inflammation, as the result of autoimmune processes, infection, allergy, or injury, can sometimes trigger or mimic common mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety, OCD or even behavioral changes. This connection between brain inflammation and mental health is often misdiagnosed by healthcare providers leading to confusion and delay of care that the patient deserves. Or even the wrong care.

The pain and anguish of these debilitating and misdiagnosed mental health symptoms can have devastating effects on the lives of patients and families – it’s all too common of a story. But we feel strongly that the solution to brain inflammation and mental health is hidden in plain sight. Our goal is to assemble the largest patient driven data and biosample resource to date to uncover the answers needed to further advancements in diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Mental health and brain inflammation research have been underrepresented for far too long. No long-term, real-world study has ever been done to track individuals suffering from brain inflammation and mental health issues. The Unhide™ Project is leading the charge to change that. Now.

Interested in learning more? Here’s how it works…

The Project

A simple to use online digital platform that easily tracks patient stories, symptoms, life events, and bio-samples all in one place in an effort to look for patterns and triggers in both mental and physical health.

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Bio-Samples

Participants may be asked to voluntarily provide a non-invasive biological sample, such as urine or saliva, to be analyzed by our researchers.

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Mental Health Connection

Understanding brain inflammation and mental health symptoms can be difficult and confusing to families, clinicians – and even researchers.

Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions

Sponsored by

 

The Brain Inflammation Collaborative sponsors the ImPatient EmPowered™ Project. They have received a grant from a private family foundation that has agreed to fund a large portion of operating costs each year for the next 5 years. Any additional funding is obtained through public and private donations. Other, separate, research projects that are related to finding the answers we need to understand brain inflammation may be funded by government grants or pharma companies looking to give back to the community.

The Unhide™ Project is sponsored by the Brain Inflammation Collaborative. Their mission is to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of neuroinflammatory disease through coordinated research that connects patients and researchers through centralized patient data. In 2021, the Brain Inflammation Collaborative received a grant from a private family foundation that has agreed to fund a large portion of operating costs for the online patient research study each year for the next 5 years. Any additional funding needed will need to be obtained through public and private donations. Please consider helping fund this mission.

Other research projects sponsored by the Brain Inflammation Collaborative, related to finding the answers needed to understanding brain inflammation, may also be funded by public and private donations, government grants, or pharma companies looking to give back to the community. Help us today to make a difference in uncovering the connection between brain inflammation and mental health.

Our Partners

We Would Love to Hear From You

As you continue on this journey, we will be right by your side! Your well-being is our main priority. Although we do not offer clinical care, we’ll be here to closely follow up with your treatment and other health-related experiences. Don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or feedback.

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The Brain Inflammation Collaborative
NOTE: The  Unhide™ Project platform is not a medical device, and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, monitor or prevent medical conditions or illnesses. Do not make any major health changes without consulting your doctor or a medical professional.

Here are the next steps if you qualify for registration:

Step 1

You will receive an email with important information from our clinical trial platform. (If you haven’t received the email within 7 days, please check your SPAM folder for a message from webmaster@clsds.com.)

Step 2

This email will contain:

  • Your 6-digit Subject PIN (passcode) that you can use to log into the Unhide ™ platform
  • Your Subject ID
  • Additional instructions on participation

Step 3

Please write down your PIN and Subject ID in a safe place so you can refer back to it throughout your participation!

Step 4

When you log into the Unhide ™ Platform, you will be prompted to agree to the Informed Consent form, which will provide detailed study information.

Please review all the study details before agreeing to participate in this study.

Step 5

If you are enrolling on behalf of a participant aged 7-17, please ensure they are present when the form is reviewed and additional assent is given.

Mental Health Connection

Understanding brain inflammation and mental health symptoms can be difficult and confusing to families, clinicians – and even researchers. As part of our research, we hope to identify ways to determine when brain inflammation is involved in the triggering of mental health symptoms. Did you know brain inflammation and mental health symptoms can result post-viral or even from bacteria from an abscessed tooth or strep infection? And some autoimmune illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and POTS are now thought to have associations with brain inflammation. Even long COVID is being studied for the connection to brain inflammation and mental health symptoms. Help us to collect the data and the bio-samples we need to find the answers to better understand the connection between brain inflammation and mental health. Some of the mental health symptoms we are investigating:
  • Behavior changes
  • OCD
  • Abnormal restrictive eating behaviors
  • Depression
  • Anxiety disorders
  • Seizures
  • Brain fog or cognitive issues
  • Intrusive thoughts
  • Chronic fatigue
  • Motor and vocal tics
  • Light-headedness and/or dizziness
  • Joint or nerve pain
See our FAQ’s on Eligibility. Learn more about brain inflammation and mental health on our sponsor website – the Brain Information Collaborative – a larger more extensive site coming soon!

Bio-Samples

Participants may be asked to voluntarily provide a non-invasive biological sample, such as urine or saliva, to be analyzed by our researchers. These samples will be taken to correspond with certain life events such as initial diagnosis, illness flares, hospitalization, or other notable life events the patient may experience. Tying these symptoms and life events to real-time patient bio-samples will help to provide researchers with a clearer picture needed to decode the mystery of the effects of brain inflammation on mental and physical health. We are also seeking healthy individuals willing to participate as healthy controls. To complete clinical research, results from healthy controls are compared to results from the group being studied. Patients could also be asked to voluntarily provide bio-samples for outside medical testing services such as Moleculera Labs, SomaLogic, or the BioBank of the Americas to become part of a larger study to learn more about a variety of immune markers such as cytokines or antibodies, proteomics or genetics in neuroinflammatory illnesses. Learn more about how to make a difference in our  FAQ’s .

The Project

The Unhide™ Project is a simple to use, online digital platform that easily tracks patient health stories, symptoms, life events, and bio-samples all in one place. With this data, we look to further the advancements in diagnosis, treatment and prevention of brain inflammation through this clinical research registry and biobank platform. Our goal is to look for patterns and triggers in both mental and physical health. But we also hope this tool will help families ease their overall burden of collecting and organizing patient health care data – for themselves and for the ease of sharing with healthcare providers. The beginning phase of our ongoing research study will include those with a diagnosis or suspected diagnosis of one or more of the following:
  • Long Covid
  • POTS
  • ME/CFS
  • OCD
  • Anorexia Nervosa
  • PANDAS/PANS
  • Tourette’s
  • Narcolepsy
  • Autoimmune Encephalitis
By participating in the Unhide™ Project, you will join a larger collaborative effort to help us learn about mental health symptoms that we feel are driven by brain inflammation. Keep checking back as additional diseases and illnesses get added to our research scope. Read our FAQ’s to learn more about eligibility and benefits of joining our project.