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The participants of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 were recruited to the project because they had taken part in the Scottish Mental Survey 1947. This followed the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932 from which the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 was established.
The surveys had, respectively, tested the intelligence of almost every child born in 1921 or 1936 and attending school in Scotland in the month of June in those years. Tracing, recruiting and re-testing people who had taken part in the Surveys offered a rare opportunity to examine the distribution and causes of cognitive ageing across most of the human life course.

The LBC1936 began in 2004 and recruited 1091 of the 70,805 individuals who had taken part in the 1947 survey. The LBC1936 have been examined at mean ages of 70, 73, 76 and 79 years. The cohort has a wide range of variables: genome-wide genotyping, demographics, psycho-social and lifestyle factors, cognitive functions, medical history and examination, biomarkers (from blood and urine) and a detailed structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan.

Last update: 08/12/2016

The ICICLE-PD study aims to accurately characterise two independent cohorts of incident parkinsonism in Newcastle-Gateshead and Cambridgeshire. A key objective is to identify patients who develop Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD) and the factors that predict its evolution. From this information, a simplified panel of tests that can be used to predict PDD will be established. ICICLE-PD will therefore provide a platform for studies investigating agents designed to help treat this complication of PD. Participants were recruited between June 2009 and March 2012. Longitudinal follow up is on going with assessments in person at 18-month intervals.

Last update: 16/01/2017

CFAS II based in England and Wales started in 2008, and builds on the design and infrastructure of original CFAS. It has provided data on generational and geographical differences including people in institutions. It will also provide important base-line information on older people aged 65-84 in 2007-2008 who will reach the age of greatest frailty during the 2020s when the peak in the number of people aged 85 or over is expected and at a time when major therapeutic interventions for dementia could be expected to have an effect. Participants were followed up by interview throughout 2010-2011.

CFAS II is part of the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), a multi-million pound public-private partnership to accelerate progress in dementias research http://www.mrc.ac.uk/research/facilities/dementias-platform-uk/

Last update: 13/01/2017

MRC CFAS study started in the late 1980s with the initial aim of investigating dementia and cognitive decline in a representative sample of more than 18,000 people aged over 65 years. To date there have been in the region of 48,000 interviews with participants in the study. The range of information collected has also allowed the study to investigate depression and physical disability in the older population and also look at healthy active life expectancy. Following baseline interviews, subsets of the cohort have been contacted for 1, 2, 6 and 8 year follow up and the whole sample were contacted for a 10 year follow up. There have also been in excess of 580 donations of participant’s brains after death.

CFAS is part of the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), a multi-million pound public-private partnership to accelerate progress in dementias research http://www.mrc.ac.uk/research/facilities/dementias-platform-uk/

There is a sister study CFAS II which builds on the design and infrastructure of MRC CFAS. It has provided data on generational and geographical differences including people in institutions. CFAS I is the original three sites (Cambridge, Newcastle and Nottingham) from MRC CFAS which are used as a comparitor for CFAS II.

Last update: 13/01/2017