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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 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 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