DIVERT-AD · Exploit population imaging to unravel resistance to Alzheimer's disease
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-09-01 → 2025-03-25
- EU contribution
- €253,052
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Exploit population imaging to unravel resistance to Alzheimer's disease
Prevention of late-life cognitive impairment and dementia is one of the greatest global challenges in the 21st century. Currently, there are 47 million people worldwide living with dementia. This number is projected to double by 2030 due to rising life expectancy. In Europe alone, the annual cost of dementia is estimated to exceed €250 billion. These alarming figures underscore the critical need for effective dementia prevention strategies. The Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention has proposed fourteen potentially modifiable risk factors whose successful elimination could prevent up to 45% of dementia cases. These factors are less education, hypertension, high cholesterol, hearing impairment, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, low social contact, excessive alcohol consumption, head trauma, visual impairment and air pollution (Livingston et al, Lancet, 2024). In order to personalise dementia prevention and make it more effective, we need to understand how these risk factors influence the development of dementia, and who would benefit most from risk management. In DIVERT-AD, I investigated two mechanisms. Managing risk factors may firstly reduce the burden of brain pathology, like Alzheimer’s disease. It may secondarily increase a person’s ability to cope with brain pathology, so that cognitive performance is less affected relative to disease burden. This knowledge is important for the effective implementation of dementia prevention strategies, for example in terms of timing and which factors are more appropriate for primary and secondary prevention. In DIVERT-AD, I also investigated which groups are more vulnerable to dementia risk factors. Older age, female sex and carrying an apolipoprotein E4 allele (a common genetic variant) are key non-modifiable risk factors of dementia and critical for tailoring prevention strategies.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Preventing or delaying late life cognitive impairment and dementia through lifestyle interventions is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century. The long preclinical phase of dementia offers an ideal time window for prevention measures, but the best timing and target group is not known. In this regard, it will become essential to understand why some elderly at-risk individuals are resistant to developing significant brain pathology and why in those with manifested brain pathology, some individuals are resilient against cognitive decline. In DIVERT-AD, I aim to unravel how modifiable lifestyle factors contribute to resistance and resilience to dementia by exploiting longitudinal population brain imaging. The key objectives are to determine whether a favourable lifestyle profile in mid- and late-life can attenuate (1) higher early-life risk of developing neuropathology, and/or (2) the adverse effect of neuropathology on cognition and then (3) to apply this knowledge to one of the first population-based positron emission tomography investigations of amyloid pathology, the key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. To achieve these goals, I will combine genetics, lifestyle, neuropsychology and brain imaging data from three large population-based cohorts, the Rotterdam Study, Framingham Heart Study and UK Biobank, including a total of ~47,000 participants. Neuropathology will be first determined by magnetic resonance imaging techniques measuring neurodegenerative and vascular pathologies and will be later refined by molecular imaging of amyloid plaques (~700 participants). Advanced epidemiological methods will be used to account for time-varying effects of lifestyle measures and confounders. Results from DIVERT-AD will provide unique insights into the impact of lifestyle factors on the brain and cognition in the preclinical phase of dementia. In turn, these insights are of major importance for developing targeted prevention strategies.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- ERASMUS UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM ROTTERDAM · RotterdamCoordinatorNetherlands
- PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE · CambridgeUnited States
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101032288
- https://www.alzheimercentrumerasmusmc.nl/onderzoeker/onderzoekslijnen/onderzoeken/amyvasc
Data: CORDIS, © European Union