  Starting from a 5D-Riemannian manifold, we show that a reduction mechanism to
4D-spacetimes reproduces Extended Theories of Gravity (ETGs) that are direct
generalizations of Einstein's gravity. In this context, the gravitational
degrees of freedom can be dealt under the standard of spacetime deformations.
Besides, such deformations can be related to the mass spectra of particles. The
intrinsic non-linearity of ETGs gives an energy-dependent running coupling,
while torsion gives rise to interactions among spinors displaying the structure
of the weak forces among fermions. We discuss how this scheme is compatible
with the known observational evidence and suggest that eventual discrepancies
could be detected in experiments, as ATLAS and CMS, today running at LHC
(CERN). We finally discuss the consequences of the present approach in view of
unification of physical interactions.
