UK Biobank pilot imaging enhancement

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In UK Biobank, questionnaire data, physical measurements and biological samples have been collected from 500,000 men and women aged 40-69, and their health is now being followed long-term. A prospective cohort like UK Biobank allows reliable assessment of the relevance of many different exposures to the development of many different diseases. However, such studies need to be big because only a relatively small proportion of participants will develop any particular disease. It is now planned to conduct specialised imaging of the brain, heart, large blood vessels, abdomen, bone and joints in 100,000 UK Biobank participants. Although imaging has been done in some other studies, these have involved only small numbers of people (typically less than 5,000) and have focussed on imaging particular parts of the body. By contrast, combination of imaging data from different parts of the body in 100,000 UK Biobank participants with the detailed non-imaging data already collected will provide a unique resource for researchers from around the world to investigate the causes of different diseases. (For example, dementia may be related to imaging measures not only from the brain but also from other parts of the body, as well as to genetic, biochemical or environmental information.)