Background: The Health Brain Initiative (HBI), established by University of Miami's Comprehensive Center for Brain Health (CCBH), follows racially/ethnically diverse older adults without dementia living in South Florida. With dementia prevention and brain health promotion as an overarching goal, HBI will advance scientific knowledge by developing novel assessments and non-invasive biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), examining additive effects of sociodemographic, lifestyle, neurological and biobehavioral measures, and employing innovative, methodologically advanced modeling methods to characterize ADRD risk and resilience factors and transition of brain aging.
Methods: HBI is a longitudinal, observational cohort study that will follow 500 deeply-phenotyped participants annually to collect, analyze, and store clinical, cognitive, behavioral, functional, genetic, and neuroimaging data and biospecimens. Participants are ≥50 years old; have no, subjective, or mild cognitive impairment; have a study partner; and are eligible to undergo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recruitment is community-based including advertisements, word-of-mouth, community events, and physician referrals. At baseline, following informed consent, participants complete detailed web-based surveys (e.g., demographics, health history, risk and resilience factors), followed by two half-day visits which include neurological exams, cognitive and functional assessments, an overnight sleep study, and biospecimen collection. Structural and functional MRI is completed by all participants and a subset also consent to amyloid PET imaging. Annual follow-up visits repeat the same data and biospecimen collection as baseline, except that MRIs are conducted every other year after baseline.
Ethics And Expected Impact: HBI has been approved by the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Institutional Review Board. Participants provide informed consent at baseline and are re-consented as needed with protocol changes. Data collected by HBI will lead to breakthroughs in developing new diagnostics and therapeutics, create comprehensive diagnostic evaluations, and provide the evidence base for precision medicine approaches to dementia prevention with individualized treatment plans.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.21.23295908 | DOI Listing |
J Alzheimers Dis
January 2025
Alzheimer Centrum Limburg, Mental Health and Neuroscience Research Institute (MHeNs), Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
Background: There is consistent evidence for the contribution of modifiable risk factors to dementia risk, offering opportunities for primary prevention. Yet, most individuals are unaware of these opportunities.
Objective: To investigate whether online education about dementia risk reduction may be a low-level means to increase knowledge and support self-management of modifiable dementia risk factors.
Brain Behav
January 2025
Department of Neuroradiology, School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Purpose: Due to the highly individualized clinical manifestation of Parkinson's disease (PD), personalized patient care may require domain-specific assessment of neurological disability. Evidence from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies has proposed that heterogenous clinical manifestation corresponds to heterogeneous cortical disease burden, suggesting customized, high-resolution assessment of cortical pathology as a candidate biomarker for domain-specific assessment.
Method: Herein, we investigate the potential of the recently proposed Mosaic Approach (MAP), a normative framework for quantifying individual cortical disease burden with respect to a population-representative cohort, in predicting domain-specific clinical progression.
Alzheimers Res Ther
January 2025
Laboratory for Clinical Neuroscience, Center for Biomedical Technology, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, IdISSC, Crta M40, km38, Madrid, 28223, Spain.
Background: Dementia patients commonly present multiple neuropathologies, worsening cognitive function, yet structural neuroimaging signatures of dementia have not been positioned in the context of combined pathology. In this study, we implemented an MRI voxel-based approach to explore combined and independent effects of dementia pathologies on grey and white matter structural changes.
Methods: In 91 amnestic dementia patients with post-mortem brain donation, grey matter density and white matter hyperintensity (WMH) burdens were obtained from pre-mortem MRI and analyzed in relation to Alzheimer's, vascular, Lewy body, TDP-43, and hippocampal sclerosis (HS) pathologies.
Int J Equity Health
January 2025
Tekano, Capetown, South Africa.
Globally, individuals with Down syndrome (DS) face profound inequities in social and health care access. These challenges are further compounded by racial disparities as well as a lack of awareness, research, and support, particularly in the Global South. This commentary discusses the multifaceted challenges and disparities encountered by people with DS in South Africa, highlighting the need for targeted interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Gastroenterol
January 2025
Department of Gastroenterology, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Unii Lubelskiej 1, Szczecin, 71-254, Poland.
Background: Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs), now known as disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBIs), such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Functional Dyspepsia (FD), significantly impact global health, reducing quality of life and burdening healthcare systems. This study addresses the epidemiological gap in Poland, focusing on the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 2070 Caucasian patients (58.
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