Biobank innovations for chronic cerebrovascular disease with Alzheimer's disease study (BICWALZS)

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundBiobank Innovations for chronic Cerebrovascular disease With ALZheimer’s disease Study (BICWALZS) aimed to recruit 650 individuals, aged from 40 to 90 years, to investigate how chronic cerebrovascular contribute to the brain changes or brain pathologies related to the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) process.MethodAll participants received comprehensive clinical and neuropsychological evaluations, multi‐modal brain imaging, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic resonance angiography, Flutemetamol positron emission tomography (PET), blood and genetic marker analyses at baseline, and a subset of participants underwent actigraphy monitoring and fibroblast sampling. Participants are to be followed annually with brief clinical assessments, and some subjects with amyloid or subcortical ischemia are evaluated biannually with the full assessment, including neuropsychological, MRI and laboratory tests.ResultsIn total, 543 individuals had volunteered for this study. Among them, 345 individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 44 individuals with subcortical vascular dementia(SVaD) and 154 individuals with AD dementia (ADD)–were enrolled at baseline.ConclusionThe BICWALZS cohort is a prospective, longitudinal cohort study that recruited participants with a wide age range and a wide distribution of cognitive status (MCI, SVaD and ADD) and it has several strengths in its design and methodologies. Details of the recruitment, study methodology, and baseline sample characteristics are described in this paper.