A quick tour of the files

In this section we’ll give a brief overview of the tables available for download, using the ‘Study Files’ interface as our frontend.

Assessments

This heading contains tables that record the results of clinical and non-clinical instruments administered to ADNI participants and study partners, including diagnostic assessment, neuropsychiatric tests, and clinical questionnaires.

Diagnosis, as the name would suggest, contains clinical diagnostic assessments.
Neuropsychological houses data on in-clinic cognitive assessments, including both neuropsychiatric assessments and questionnaires that capture clinical features of cognitive decline.
Non-clinical Assessments contains data from a co-enrollment program with the UCSF brain health registry. More information about this program can be found [here].

Biospecimen

This heading contains data relevant to the collection and analysis of biofluid samples.

Biosample Inventory contains information on the availability of ADNI biosamples, and includes a full listing of available aliquots. This section is particularly useful for labs who may wish to request ADNI samples for analysis.
Biospecimen Results is a collection of tables that contain the results of analyses carried out by labs on ADNI samples, and their corresponding methods documents.
Lab Collection Procedures contains tables that give important procedural information on biofluid sample collection, including details of blood and CSF draws.

Curated Data Cuts

This section contains information about a comparison study between ADNI and the dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s network (DIAN) study.

More detailed information about the comparison study, and the contents of this section, can be found in the documentation here:

Enrollment

Amyloid Status & Disclosure contains data on the disclosure of amyloid results to participants, and the results of visual reads of amyloid PET scans (not to be confused with the numerical summaries provided by the ADNI PET core).
Enrollment contains records that relate to participants’ involvement in the study itself. Specifically, this includes
- The registry – a central record of visits for all participants across all phases of the study
- Records of various participant consents (consent tracking, neuropathology status)
- Records of participants leaving the study (early discontinuations and withdrawals, study visits summary)
- Mappings between different longitudinal and participant identifier schemes (ADNI 2 Visit Codes Lookup, Roster, Visits)
- Information on inclusion/exclusion criteria collected at screening (clinician verification, study visits summary, ADNI1 inclusion/exclusion)
- Additional notes on visits by clinical staff (additional comments)
- Information on participant cohort assignment (arm)
- Information on how participants were referred into the study (recruitment tracking)

Genetic

Genotype results contains data from an external study on polygenic hazard scores, TOMM40 PolyT variant data from ADNI1, and a methods doc for MAP2K3 genotyping. What this section does not contain is APOE genotype information – that can be found under the Biospecimen Results heading in the Biospecimen section.
Other Genetic Data & Info contains a litany of other genetics tables, including methods docs and summary scores from whole genome sequencing.

Note that genetics data in specialized formats is available under the ‘Genetic Files’ tab of the ‘Downloads’ section, outside of the study files interface.

Imaging

This section contains tables related to the acquisition, processing, and analysis of PET and MR imaging data. It does not contain the image files in DICOM format. These can be found using either the ARC builder or advanced image search interfaces.

PET/MR Image Acquisition these sections contain metadata on the acquisition of scans, as well as technical documentation including diffusion gradient tables for different MR scanner manufacturers.
PET/MR Image Analysis these sections contain numerical summaries derived from raw MR and PET images – including SUVRs for amyloid and tau PET imaging, and derived measures from MRI modalities.
PET/MR Quality these sections contain QC information on PET and MR scans and are particularly useful to cross-reference for researchers working with image data.

Medical History

This section contains information on participant’s self-reported medications and medical history, as well as a number of other tables.

Note that fields with potential PHI are redacted from the publicly available data tables.

Adverse Events contains records of events such as deaths and hospitalizations that affect ADNI participants during the course of the study.
Drugs contains current and previous medications, self-reported by participants. The information in these tables is currently redacted for ongoing phases (ADNI3 and ADNI4 at time of writing), but is available for participants in historical phases.
Medical History contains information on participant self-reported clinical history, and – for ADNI4 participants – information on enrollment in anti-amyloid therapy.
Physical/Neurological Exams contains information on clinical physical and neurological exams conducted at participant screening/baseline, as well as records of vital signs that are collected in every clinical visit.

Neuropathology

This section contains a table giving the results of a neuropathology assessment of post-mortem brain tissue for deceased participants who consented to brain donation, as well as the corresponding methods document.

Study Info

This section consists of a grab-bag of useful tables, divided up across three subsections:

Data and database contains a master data dictionary with comprehensive coverage of the data tables and data fields included in the repository.

This section also includes the necessary files for building the ADNIMERGE package.
Data Submission Standards provides the standards and procedures for contributing analysis results to the ADNI data repository.
Study Protocols & CRFs contains documentation for the data set, including procedures manuals and clinical worksheets.

Subject Characteristics

Family History has information on participant’s family history of AD
Subject Demographics contains the all-important participant demographics table, as well as a number of assessments measuring social determinants of health.

Test data

This contains specific subsets of data that were used in different ‘challenges’ put together by outside organizations that made use of ADNI data:

ADNI Online

This section contains data and documentation on the ADNI4 remote digital cohort.

ADSP PHC

This section contains tables and documentation relevant to the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP) phenotype harmonization consortium (PHC) project.

More information about this project can be found here