Centre for Cognitive Ageing & Cognitive Epidemiology

2008年，我们在爱丁堡大学成立了认知老化和认知流行病学中心（CCACE）。这次会议汇集了不同领域的科学家——流行病学家、心理学家、老年病学家、临床和基础神经科学家、遗传学家、统计学家、社会学家——来研究大脑和身体是如何在整个人类生命过程中以及几代人之间相互影响的。本申请描述了CCACE如何加强这项重要的研究，以及我们未来五年的计划。该中心在我们的科学成就、我们对年轻科学家的培训以及我们的研究与更广泛的非科学团体的交流方面带来了阶段性的变化。在科学上，我们取得了四个方面的成就。我们的发现使我们成为研究青少年智力如何影响以后的身体健康、幸福、精神疾病和死亡率的主要国际中心（认知流行病学）。(2)在我们的大群老年人中，我们对他们进行了年轻时的智力测量，我们在基因、生活方式、大脑结构和其他对思维（认知）技能老化的贡献方面取得了发现，这使我们走在了国际前沿。我们关于糖尿病如何影响思维能力的发现是基于一项规模最大的研究。(3)我们的工作利用大脑工作原理来探索衰老对重要的特定思维技能的影响。这导致我们设计了早期检测痴呆症的测试。(4)从事认知衰退生物学机制研究的科学家们在人类和动物研究中取得了一些发现，揭示了改善认知衰老的可能生物学途径。该中心的存在带来了新的合作者，使我们有能力领导新的队列和国际联盟，并带来了一个新的阿尔茨海默病研究中心。该中心在培养年轻科学家方面带来了一个重大变化。成功的科学家们在一起工作，建立了一个博士生社区，专注于我们的目标。许多不是由中心资助的人都在我们的保护伞下，增加了价值。我们正在满足本领域临床科学家培训的需要。该中心还负责知识交流方面的逐步改变。我们与非专业人士、政策制定者、艺术家和企业的合作，将我们的科学带出了办公室和实验室，创造了意识、新艺术和产品，并影响了政策。在接下来的五年里，爱丁堡大学将慷慨地支持该中心，为LLHW提供大量资金。在科研培训方面，我们的愿景是从博士毕业开始指导年轻科学家，帮助他们发展成为认知衰老和认知流行病学领域的独立科学家，以满足这些重要需求。在我们的四个研究小组的领域，我们强调了我们的目标是做出发现的关键领域。在这里，我们提到一些。我们正在扩大我们的认知流行病学工作，以研究个性和思维技能如何影响后来的健康和疾病。我们将在老年人群体中进行大规模的新的基因研究，以发现人们的环境如何影响他们的基因开关，从而影响思维能力和衰老的其他方面。我们将进行不寻常的大规模纵向研究，以检查2型糖尿病患者在10年内大脑扫描和思维能力的平行变化，以及认知的变化。我们将深入研究具体的思维过程，以找到最能表征各种形式的正常和基于疾病的认知衰老的精确问题集。我们将进行平行的人类和动物研究，以调查小血管变化对大脑健康和思维技能的重要性和性质。我们有一个雄心勃勃的战略，以扩大和更正式的知识交流计划。

In 2008 we formed the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE) at the University of Edinburgh. This brought together a diverse range of scientists-epidemiologists, psychologists, geriatricians, clinical and basic neuroscientists, geneticists, statisticians, sociologists-to study how the brain and the body influence each other across the human life course and between generations. This application describes how CCACE enhanced this important research, and our plans for the next five years.The Centre brought a step change in our scientific achievements, our training of young scientists, and the communication of our research to wider, non-scientific groups. In science, we made achievements in four areas. (1) Our discoveries made us the leading international centre for the study of how intelligence from youth influences physical health, wellbeing, mental illness and mortality later in life (cognitive epidemiology). (2) In our large groups of older people on whom there were measures of intelligence from youth we made discoveries about genetic, lifestyle, brain structure and other contributions to the ageing of thinking (cognitive) skills that put us at the forefront internationally. Our discoveries on how diabetes affects thinking skills are based on one of the largest studies. (3) Our work uses theories of how the brain works to explore ageing effects on important specific thinking skills. This led to our devising tests for the early detection of dementia. (4) Our scientists working on the biological mechanisms of cognitive decline have made discoveries in human and animal studies that revealed likely biological routes for the amelioration of cognitive ageing. The Centre's presence brought new collaborators, gave us the capability to lead new cohorts and international consortia, and brought in a new Alzheimer Research Centre.The Centre brought a step change in the training of young scientists. The thriving mix of successful scientists working together has built up a community of PhD students concentrating on our aims. Many who are not funded by the Centre have come under our umbrella, adding value. We are meeting a need for the training of clinical scientists in our areas. The Centre has also been responsible for a step change in knowledge exchange. Our work with lay people, policy makers, artists, and business has brought our science out of the office and laboratory, creating awareness, new art, and products, and influencing policy.In the next five years the University of Edinburgh is generously supporting the Centre by funding a substantial amount of what originally came from LLHW funding. In research training, our vision is to mentor young scientists from the end of their PhDs and helpi them to develop into independent scientists in cognitive ageing and cognitive epidemiology to meet these important needs. In our four research Groups' fields we highlight the key areas in which we aim to make discoveries. Here, we mention a few. We are expanding our cognitive epidemiology work to examine how personality and thinking skills affect later health and illness. We shall conduct large-scale new genetic work in our cohorts of older people to find out how people's environments affect how their genes switch on and off and thereby affect thinking skills and other aspects of ageing. We shall conduct unusually large longitudinal studies to examine the parallel changes in brain scans and thinking skills, and the changes in cognition over 10 years in people with type 2 diabetes. We shall delve into specific thinking processes to find the precise sets of problems that best characterise various forms of normal and illness-based cognitive ageing. We shall undertake parallel human and animal work to investigate the importance and nature of changes in small blood vessels for brain health and thinking skills. We have an ambitious strategy for an expanded and more formalised programme of knowledge exchange.