Work

The PREVENT dementia programme: baseline demographic, lifestyle, imaging and cognitive data from a midlife cohort study investigating risk factors for dementia

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: PREVENT is a multi-centre prospective cohort study in the UK and Ireland that aims to examine mid-life risk factors for dementia, identify and describe the earliest indices of disease development. The PREVENT dementia programme is one of the original epidemiological initiatives targeting midlife as a critical window for intervention in neurodegenerative conditions. This paper provides an overview of the study protocol and presents the first summary results from the initial baseline data to describe the cohort. Participants in the PREVENT cohort provide demographic data, biological samples (blood, saliva, urine and optional cerebrospinal fluid), lifestyle and psychological questionnaires, undergo a comprehensive cognitive test battery, and are imaged using multi-modal 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning, with both structural and functional sequences. The PREVENT cohort governance structure is described, which includes a steering committee, a scientific advisory board and core patient and public involvement groups. A number of sub-studies which supplement the main PREVENT cohort are also described. The PREVENT cohort baseline data includes 700 participants recruited between 2014 and 2020 across five sites in the UK and Ireland (Cambridge, Dublin, Edinburgh, London and Oxford). At baseline, participants had a mean age of 51.2 years (range 40-59, SD ±5.47), with the majority female (n=433, 61.9%). There was a near equal distribution of participants with and without a parental history of dementia (51.4% vs 48.6%) and a relatively high prevalence of APOE⍰4 carriers (n=264, 38.0%). Participants were highly educated (16.7 ± 3.44 years of education), were mainly of European Ancestry (n=672, 95.9%) and were cognitively healthy as measured by the Addenbrookes Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III) (Total score 95.6 ±4.06). Mean white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volume at recruitment was 2.26 ± 2.77 ml (median = 1.39ml), with hippocampal volume 8.15 ± 0.79ml. There was good representation of known dementia risk factors in the cohort. The PREVENT cohort offers a novel dataset to explore midlife risk factors and early signs of neurodegenerative disease. Data are available open access at no cost via the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (ADDI) platform and Dementia Platforms UK (DPUK) platform pending approval of the data access request from the PREVENT steering group committee.

Source: Brain Communications

DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcae189