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The Three-City Study (3C Study) is a population-based longitudinal study of the relation between vascular diseases and dementia in persons aged 65 years and older. A total of 9,294 participants (3,649 men and 5,645 women) were recruited from three French cities: Bordeaux (2,104), Dijon (4,931) and Montpellier (2,259).

The principal objective is to estimate the risk of dementia (Alzheimer’s disease and other types) that may be attributed to vascular factors.

In follow up 1 and 2 (2001-2004) participants were interviewed and subjected to physical and cognitive testing. In follow up 3 (2005-2012) participants completed a postal questionnaire. The third, fourth, and fith waves of follow-up examinations started in 2006 and finished in 2012. A sixth follow-up is ongoing.

Last update – 03/02/2017

There are over 800,000 people with dementia in the UK today, and this figure is set to double in the next 30 years. Dementia has a huge impact on a person’s life and is one of society’s most urgent health and social care challenges. Despite this, treatment for dementia is very limited and there is no cure.

Human tissue is vital for dementia research but is currently in short supply and is not covered in standard organ donation schemes. With the support of Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK, Brains for Dementia Research was set up in 2007 to establish a network of brain bank facilities across England and Wales.

It is now a ‘gold standard’ for brain tissue banking, linking six leading centres (based in London, Oxford, Newcastle, Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff) in a network of common standards, best practice and cooperation. This lays the foundation to enable the highest quality dementia research, which aims to find a cure for dementia. In each bank, people with mild cognitive impairment or a diagnosis of dementia, and healthy participants, are supported to donate their brain by specialist research nurses.

This initiative is unique from other brain banks, as the memory, thinking and behaviour of each prospective donor are monitored throughout their later life through regular assessments. This provides researchers with a complete medical history to accompany the donated brain tissue, allowing them to see how brain changes correlate with symptoms.

Last update – 09/05/2018

The British Regional Heart Study (BRHS) is a prospective study in middle-aged men drawn from general practices in 24 British towns, 7,735 men were recruited in 1978-1980. It was set up to determine the factors responsible for the considerable variation in coronary heart disease, hypertension and stroke in Great Britain. It also seeks to determine the causes of these conditions in order to provide a rational basis for recommendations towards their prevention.

Following the collection of baseline date in 1978-80 the cohort has been followed up through the participants, two-yearly GP Record Reviews, and the Office of Population and Census Surveys. Participants have been re-contacted through questionnaires or assessment in 1983-85, 1992, 1996, 1998-2000, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2010-2012, 2014, 2015, 2016.

Last update – 21/02/2017

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

BePaiD (Behaviour and Pain in Dementia) is a longitudinal cohort study of 230 people with dementia, aged over 70, admitted to hospital for acute medical illness, and assessed for BPSD and pain at admission and every 4 (+1) days until discharge. Other measures included length of stay, care quality indicators, adverse events and mortality.

The aim of the study is to define the prevalence of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) and explore their clinical associations, particularly with pain, BPSD encompasses a range of symptoms including agitation, aggression, delusions, hallucinations, depression and apathy.

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

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 participants 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

The Cambridge City over-75s Cohort Study (CC75C) is a long-term follow-up study of a representative population-based sample of older people which started in 1985 from a survey of over 2,600 men and women aged 75 and above. Through a series of interviews and assessments spanning almost three decades they have contributed to one of the largest and longest-running longitudinal observational studies of ageing into older old age.
The initial study targeted all men and women aged 75 or older who were registered within a selection of geographically and socially representative general practices in Cambridge, and achieved a 95% response rate in six of the seven practices. From this original survey of 2610 people, 2166 individuals form the baseline sample for the longitudinal cohort. This group has been followed up through ten surveys, with sub-groups assessed more often. Similarly high response rates amongst participants still alive in their late 80s or 90s, and even amongst centenarians, have built an extensive resource of quantitative and qualitative data contributed by a representative sample of very old people and their relatives.
The focus in later years shifted to quality of life issues of ‘older old’ people near the end of life for which we have been interviewing relatives or carers of surviving members of the cohort all aged 95 or more, as well as these study participants themselves.

Last update: 05/01//2017