There are many active research projects accessing and applying shared ADNI data. Use the search above to find specific research focuses on the active ADNI investigations. This information is requested annually as a requirement for data access.
| Principal Investigator | |
| Principal Investigator's Name: | Fernanda Caroline Dos Santos |
| Institution: | Centre for Addiction and Mental Health |
| Department: | Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute |
| Country: | |
| Proposed Analysis: | The co-occurrence and longitudinal comorbidity of Alzheimer's disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and depressive symptoms suggest the existence of shared risk factors. Despite the identification of some genome-wide risk loci and biomarkers for these phenotypes in the last years, the biology of AD and MCI, as well as their link to depression, are not completely understood. Previous work from our research group using postmortem brain of healthy individuals at different ages has identified robust age-related changes in gene expression. Subsequent work by the group has demonstrated that deviations from normative expression of these age-dependent genes consistent with an older molecular brain age are observed in psychiatric disorders, including Major depressive disorder (MDD), suggesting that accelerated brain biological aging may contribute to disease risk and/or its pathophysiology. Additionally, this work also identified genetic variants associated with these deviations. These variants and their biological effect size were integrated into polygenic risk scores (PRS) indexing brain biological aging, which allowed the assessment of biological and chronological age differences in living individuals. We recently showed in two independent cohorts that these PRSs predict increased depression and AD vulnerability, suggesting they may be used as a translational bridge between biological brain aging and clinical phenotypes. In this study, we will expand on these promising findings, by testing whether accelerated aging of the brain is associated with cognitive loss and depressive symptoms, and also with structural brain changes occurring in MCI and AD, compared to controls, using data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Results could lead to the innovative development of early markers of biological brain aging, indexing risk for age-related brain disorders, and paving the way for preventive interventions. |
| Additional Investigators | |
| Investigator's Name: | Yuliya Nikolova |
| Proposed Analysis: | Dr. Nikolova is the PI in this proposal. She will give support and training for the main analyst (Dr. Dos Santos) to perform Neuroimaging data analyses and statistics:(Aim 3) Structural changes in the cortex will be assessed through thickness of cortical regions and volume of subcortical nuclei, measured with FreeSurfer (v6.0). Models will be fitted to investigate whether PRS-AGE predict structural changes in the whole sample and in each diagnosis group (AD, MCI and CN). |
| Investigator's Name: | Amy Miles |
| Proposed Analysis: | Dr. Miles is a co-investigator in this proposal. She will give support, training for the main analyst (Dr. Dos Santos), and she will also perform Neuroimaging data analyses and statistics in the AIM 3. AIM 3: Structural changes in the cortex will be assessed through thickness of cortical regions and volume of subcortical nuclei, measured with FreeSurfer (v6.0). Models will be fitted to investigate whether PRS-AGE predict structural changes in the whole sample and in each diagnosis group (AD, MCI and CN). |
