49 | annual report
BrainInflame Overview Founded in January 2013, the BrainInflame during Ageing Consortium is the first of its kind to focus on inflammation related to brain function and aims to attract international participation to further research understanding. Ageing is associated with enhanced systemic and brain inflammation, which may be linked to vascular damage, metabolic derangement and neuronal dysfunction, resulting in cognitive decline and depression. The study of risk and protective factors for inflammation, and the underlying molecular and neuronal mechanisms in relation to brain health, is an important objective of neuroscience research internationally. BrainInflame’s research strategy entails both human and animal research, applying a forward and backward translation process. Current members of BrainInflame include the University of Adelaide, the University of Melbourne, the Queensland Brain Institute, the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), the University of Marburg (Germany) and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. The objectives of BrainInflame are: 1. To examine the relationship between systemic and inflammatory markers and brain dysfunction (cognitive impairment, cognitive decline and depression). 2. To examine the genetic basis of inflammatory markers and brain dysfunction. 3. To identify new inflammation-related genes and protein markers associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. 4. To relate systemic inflammatory markers with changes in grey and white matter. 5. To analyse gene expression profiles of inflammatory genes over time and relate to the development of brain dysfunction. 6. To pool and harmonise larger-scale studies for further systematic examination. 7. To conduct meta-analyses.
COSMIC Overview Established in 2012, COSMIC (Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium) aims to bring together cohort studies of cognitive ageing internationally in order to facilitate a better understanding of the determinants of cognitive ageing and neurocognitive disorders. The two main objectives are to: 1. Harmonise shared, non-identifiable data from cohort studies that longitudinally examine change in cognitive function and the development of dementia in older individuals (60+ years). 2. Perform joint or mega-analyses using combined, harmonised data sets that yield collated results with enhanced statistical power, in addition to comparisons across geographical regions. The geographical regions and countries represented by the member studies include: Asia (China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore), Australia, Europe (France, Greece, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, UK), North America (Canada, USA), and South America (Brazil).
Progress 1. Our first project, “The prevalence of mild cognitive impairment in diverse geographical and ethnocultural regions: the COSMIC collaboration”, was completed in mid 2014, and a revised manuscript submitted to Alzheimer’s & Dementia in December. The project applied uniform criteria to harmonised data from 11