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The following is a summary of “Identifying pathways to the prevention of dementia: the Netherlands consortium of dementia cohorts,” published in the February 2025 issue of BMC Neurology by Oomens et al.
Combining cohort data improves precision in studying neurodegenerative pathways but faces infrastructural, ethical, and legal barriers.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to unite cohort studies in the Netherlands and strengthen the research infrastructure.
They included participants without established cognitive impairment from 9 Dutch cohorts: Amsterdam Dementia Cohort (ADC), Doetinchem Cohort Study (DCS), European Medical Information Framework for Alzheimer’s Disease (EMIF-AD), Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA), the Leiden Longevity Study (LLS), Maastricht Study, Memolife, Rotterdam Study, and Second Manifestations of ARTerial disease-Magnetic Resonance (SMART-MR). They aimed to improve data infrastructure, investigate Alzheimer’s and vascular pathology in dementia, and estimate the public health impact of dementia risk factors.
The results showed improved FAIR status through data harmonization, imaging repositories, Personal Health Train implementation, and meta-data provision. Ethical and legal frameworks enabled federated and pooled analyses, leading to the first remote federated data analyses. A total of 2,554 plasma samples were analyzed for Alzheimer’s, endothelial dysfunction, and inflammation biomarkers. Federated, pooled, and meta-analyses resulted in multiple NCDC publications.
Investigators found that combining population-based and clinical cohorts, assessing plasma markers, and using the Personal Health Train for federated analysis was feasible and promising for future collaboration.
Source: bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-024-03995-4
