Brain imaging and cognitive ageing in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936: III

随着全球人口老龄化，将需要越来越多的资源来管理和照顾一些老年人。认知老化，即老年人认知能力下降的过程，尤其令人担忧，因为它会导致生活质量下降，丧失独立性，并在晚年增加患痴呆症的风险。因此，如果我们要在个人和社会层面上减轻老龄化的负担，描述认知衰老的生物学原因是很重要的。在本提案中，我们请求资金用于收集和分析1936年洛锡安出生队列参与者的脑磁共振成像（MRI）和颈动脉多普勒超声数据。他们是一大群70多岁的相对健康的社区居民。这个队列的独特之处在于，它有来自青少年的认知数据（11岁时获得的一种经过验证的智商测量），并在70岁、73岁、76岁时重复进行认知测试、脑成像、遗传、表观遗传、生活方式、心理、社会和其他重要信息，并将在79岁时收集这些信息。通过进行第三波脑MRI和颈动脉超声扫描，我们将获得详细的成像数据，涵盖生命的第80个十年（73至79岁）的大部分时间，这段时间患痴呆症的风险增加。在老年人的三个时间点获得的纵向成像数据是罕见的，将允许彻底探索大脑结构随年龄的变化（例如脑灰质和白质的损失），这些变化如何与整个生命过程中测量的认知能力相关，以及哪些因素（例如遗传，饮食，运动等）对这些变化最负责。了解这些关系是帮助制定减缓与年龄相关的认知衰退策略的重要一步，也是描述认知衰老在预示痴呆症中所起作用的重要一步。目前的申请是为一个项目提供少数族裔资助，该项目也得到了英国老年协会的资助，用于收集认知、医学、生物标志物和社会心理数据，并对其进行整理和分析。

As human populations age across the planet, increasingly significant resources will be needed to manage and care for some older people. Cognitive ageing, the process by which some cognitive abilities decline in older age, is of particular concern, leading as it does to reduced quality of life, loss of independence, and, in its later stages, increased risk of dementia. Characterising the biological causes of cognitive ageing is therefore important if we are to reduce the burden of ageing at both the individual and societal level.In this proposal we request funds to collect and analyze brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and carotid artery Doppler ultrasound data from participants of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. They are a large group of relatively healthy community-dwelling subjects in their late seventies. This cohort is unique in having cognitive data from youth (a well-validated measure of IQ obtained at age 11 years), and repeat cognitive testing, brain imaging, genetic, epigenetic, lifestyle, psychological, social and other important information obtained from ages 70, 73, 76 years, and to be collected at age 79.By undertaking a third wave of brain MRI and carotid ultrasound scanning, we will have detailed imaging data spanning most of the eighth decade of life (73 to 79 years) during which risk of dementia increases. Longitudinal imaging data obtained at three time points in older age is rare and will allow a thorough exploration of changes in brain structure with age (e.g. loss of brain grey and white matter), how these changes relate to cognitive ability measured across the whole life course, and what factors (e.g. genetics, diet, exercise, etc.) are most responsible for these changes. Understanding these relationships is an important step in helping to develop strategies to slow age-related cognitive decline, and in characterising what role cognitive ageing plays in heralding dementia.The present application is for minority funding for a project that also has funding from Age UK for the collection of the cognitive, medical, biomarker, and psychosocial data and their collation and analyses.