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The NIMROD (Neuroimaging of Inflammation in Memory and Other Disorders) study aims to understand the role of inflammation in several forms of dementia, memory loss and depression (Alzheimer’s disease (AD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), late life depression (LLD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI)). It also aims to understand the changes in the immune system, from immune cells and other components in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid.

To achieve this, NIMROD looks at brain changes in dementia, depression and related disorders in several different ways, detecting differences in brain structure and function, measuring inflammation and annual psychology and memory assessments. A further aim is to investigate if neuroinflammation can predict subsequent clinical course, including cognitive and functional decline.

Last update – 01/02/2017

The major goals of this prospective cohort study of a randomly selected community sample are to: establish the prevalence and genetic, metabolic and environmental determinants of psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in the general population of the city of Lausanne; assess the mechanisms of the association between psychiatric disorders and CVRF / CVD.
Additional scientific questions focus on:

  • the identification of risk factors for the incidence and course of CVRF and psychiatric disorders;
    the identification of risk factors for cognitive impairment;
  • the testing of novel biological marker candidates and the incidence or course of CVRF/CVD or psychiatric disorders;
  • the testing of associations between brain anatomy patterns and CVRF and psychiatric disorders.

Last update: 19/12/2016

The PREVENT Research Programme has established a cohort of individuals to explore differences in the brain and cognitive function in healthy people in mid-life (aged 40-59). People are grouped into high, mid and low risk based on their family history and APOE status (a well-known risk gene for Alzheimer’s disease).

650 participants are assessed on biological indicators including markers in blood, saliva, urine and spinal fluid as well as direct imaging of the brain’s structure and function. Changes in all of these markers will be monitored at 2 years to work out if risks that predict these changes. One of the main aims of the study is to identify the earliest signs of changes in the brain whilst people are still in good health.

Last update – 13/12/2017

The PATH Through Life project is a 20 year longitudinal cohort study of 7,485 young (aged 20-24 at baseline), midlife (aged 40-44 at baseline) and older (aged 60-64 at baseline) adults randomly sampled from the electoral roll of the Australian Capital Territory and the nearby city of Queanbeyan.
The original aims of the project are outlined below.

  • To delineate the course of depression, anxiety, substance use and cognitive ability with increasing age across the adult life span.
  • To identify environmental risk, genetic risk and protective factors influencing individual differences in the course of these characteristics.
  • To investigate interrelationships over time between the three domains of: depression and anxiety, substance use, and cognitive ability and dementia.
  • Data collection has occurred at four intervals (4 waves), at approximately four year intervals with a good participant retention rate. The fifth wave of data collection is commencing in 2017.
    Several design features of the PATH project contribute to its unique standing among population based longitudinal cohort studies.
  • Obtaining measures of genetic, biological (including MRI), psychosocial and lifestyle risk and protective factors for mental health and wellbeing.
  • Use of a narrow age cohort design with longitudinal follow ups as an optimal means of separating age and cohort effects.
  • Assessment of participants across the full adult lifespan, permitting investigation of developmentally significant, but under studied periods such as midlife
  • Recruitment and follow up of a young-old population, providing important pre-clinical data for studying the development of age related changes in memory and cognition.

Last update – 12/01/2017

The Gipuzkoa Alzheimer Project (PGA) is a longitudinal study on pre-clinical Alzheimer’s disease. This study aims to investigate the prevalence, clinical, cognitive and neuroimaging features and potential risk factors related to cardiovascular health and lifestyles for pre-clinical AD in asymptomatic (or very mildly symtopmatic, e.g. SCD) subjects from the community.

Follow-up Scheduled every 3 years for a minimum of 12 years. The first 3-year follow-up was completed in June 2015. The loss of subjects in the follow up was 9 %. 80% of people who donated cerebrospinal fluid at the baseline visit did the same in this follow-up visit. Second follow-up visit (6 yrs) to be started in April 2017.

Last update: 16/01/2017

The NSHD has informed UK health care, education and social policy for more than 70 years and is the oldest and longest running of the British birth cohort studies. Today, with study members in their seventies, the NSHD offers a unique opportunity to explore the long-term biological and social processes of ageing and how ageing is affected by factors acting across the whole of life. From an initial maternity survey of 13,687 of all births recorded in England, Scotland and Wales during one week of March, 1946, a socially stratified sample of 5,362 singleton babies born to married parents was selected for follow-up. This sample comprises the NSHD cohort and participants have been studied 24 times throughout their life.

During their childhood, the main aim of the NSHD was to investigate how the environment at home and at school affected physical and mental development and educational attainment. During adulthood, the main aim was to investigate how childhood health and development and lifetime social circumstances affected their adult health and function and how these change with age.

Now, as participants reach retirement, the research team is developing the NSHD into a life course study of ageing. Study members completed a postal questionnaire in 2014 and participated in a home visit in 2015/16, where data on health, lifestyle and life circumstances as well as obtaining repeat physical and cognitive measurements were collected. Over the past two years, a subset of 500 study members were invited to participate in a neuroimaging sub-study and over the next two years they will be recalled for a follow-up. This study will be conducted in collaboration with the Institute of Neurology, UCL.

NSHD is part of CLOSER (Cohort & Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources) which aims to maximise the use, value and impact of the UK’s longitudinal studies.
NSHD 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: 19/12/2016

The OPDC Discovery cohort is a prospective, longitudinal study that has recruited patients with early idiopathic Parkinson Disease, healthy controls and participants at risk of PD. The study also includes participants with REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder. Over 1500 subjects have been recruited to the cohort, including 1087 people with Parkinson’s, 300 healthy controls, 111 First degree PD relatives and 151 PSG-diagnosed REM sleep behaviour disorder, thought to be ‘at-risk’ of developing future Parkinson’s. All patients have a clinical assessment repeated every eighteen months so we can better understand the progression of Parkinson’s over time. Over 500 patients have been seen for a second visit which has allowed us to identify some important differences in the way Parkinson’s progresses in different people.

Last update: 29/12/2016

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