| 1. |
- Walhovd, K. B., et al.
(författare)
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Healthy minds from 0-100 years : optimising the use of European brain imaging cohorts ("Lifebrain'')
- 2018
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Ingår i: European psychiatry. - : Elsevier. - 0924-9338 .- 1778-3585. ; 50, s. 47-56
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The main objective of "Lifebrain'' is to identify the determinants of brain, cognitive and mental (BCM) health at different stages of life. By integrating, harmonising and enriching major European neuroimaging studies across the life span, we will merge fine-grained BCM health measures of more than 5,000 individuals. Longitudinal brain imaging, genetic and health data are available for a major part, as well as cognitive and mental health measures for the broader cohorts, exceeding 27,000 examinations in total. By linking these data to other databases and biobanks, including birth registries, national and regional archives, and by enriching them with a new online data collection and novel measures, we will address the risk factors and protective factors of BCM health. We will identify pathways through which risk and protective factors work and their moderators. Exploiting existing European infrastructures and initiatives, we hope to make major conceptual, methodological and analytical contributions towards large integrative cohorts and their efficient exploitation. We will thus provide novel information on BCM health maintenance, as well as the onset and course of BCM disorders. This will lay a foundation for earlier diagnosis of brain disorders, aberrant development and decline of BCM health, and translate into future preventive and therapeutic strategies. Aiming to improve clinical practice and public health we will work with stakeholders and health authorities, and thus provide the evidence base for prevention and intervention.
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| 2. |
- Dyrby, Tim B, et al.
(författare)
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Segmentation of age-related white matter changes in a clinical multi-center study.
- 2008
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Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8119. ; 41:2, s. 335-45
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Age-related white matter changes (WMC) are thought to be a marker of vascular pathology, and have been associated with motor and cognitive deficits. In the present study, an optimized artificial neural network was used as an automatic segmentation method to produce probabilistic maps of WMC in a clinical multi-center study. The neural network uses information from T1- and T2-weighted and fluid attenuation inversion recovery (FLAIR) magnetic resonance (MR) scans, neighboring voxels and spatial location. Generalizability of the neural network was optimized by including the Optimal Brain Damage (OBD) pruning method in the training stage. Six optimized neural networks were produced to investigate the impact of different input information on WMC segmentation. The automatic segmentation method was applied to MR scans of 362 non-demented elderly subjects from 11 centers in the European multi-center study Leukoaraiosis And Disability (LADIS). Semi-manually delineated WMC were used for validating the segmentation produced by the neural networks. The neural network segmentation demonstrated high consistency between subjects and centers, making it a promising technique for large studies. For WMC volumes less than 10 ml, an increasing discrepancy between semi-manual and neural network segmentation was observed using the similarity index (SI) measure. The use of all three image modalities significantly improved cross-center generalizability compared to neural networks using the FLAIR image only. Expert knowledge not available to the neural networks was a minor source of discrepancy, while variation in MR scan quality constituted the largest source of error.
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| 3. |
- Binnewies, Julia, et al.
(författare)
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Associations of depression and regional brain structure across the adult lifespan : Pooled analyses of six population-based and two clinical cohort studies in the European Lifebrain consortium
- 2022
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Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier. - 2213-1582. ; 36
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective: Major depressive disorder has been associated with lower prefrontal thickness and hippocampal volume, but it is unknown whether this association also holds for depressive symptoms in the general population. We investigated associations of depressive symptoms and depression status with brain structures across population-based and patient-control cohorts, and explored whether these associations are similar over the lifespan and across sexes.Methods: We included 3,447 participants aged 18–89 years from six population-based and two clinical patient-control cohorts of the European Lifebrain consortium. Cross-sectional meta-analyses using individual person data were performed for associations of depressive symptoms and depression status with FreeSurfer-derived thickness of bilateral rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), and hippocampal and total grey matter volume (GMV), separately for population-based and clinical cohorts.Results: Across patient-control cohorts, depressive symptoms and presence of mild-to-severe depression were associated with lower mOFC thickness (rsymptoms = −0.15/ rstatus = −0.22), rACC thickness (rsymptoms = −0.20/ rstatus = −0.25), hippocampal volume (rsymptoms = −0.13/ rstatus = 0.13) and total GMV (rsymptoms = −0.21/ rstatus = −0.25). Effect sizes were slightly larger for presence of moderate-to-severe depression. Associations were similar across age groups and sex. Across population-based cohorts, no associations between depression and brain structures were observed.Conclusions: Fitting with previous meta-analyses, depressive symptoms and depression status were associated with lower mOFC, rACC thickness, and hippocampal and total grey matter volume in clinical patient-control cohorts, although effect sizes were small. The absence of consistent associations in population-based cohorts with mostly mild depressive symptoms, suggests that significantly lower thickness and volume of the studied brain structures are only detectable in clinical populations with more severe depressive symptoms.
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| 4. |
- Binnewies, Julia, et al.
(författare)
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Lifestyle-related risk factors and their cumulative associations with hippocampal and total grey matter volume across the adult lifespan : a pooled analysis in the European Lifebrain consortium
- 2023
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Ingår i: Brain Research Bulletin. - : Elsevier. - 0361-9230 .- 1873-2747. ; 200
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Lifestyle-related risk factors, such as obesity, physical inactivity, short sleep, smoking and alcohol use, have been associated with low hippocampal and total grey matter volumes (GMV). However, these risk factors have mostly been assessed as separate factors, leaving it unknown if variance explained by these factors is overlapping or additive. We investigated associations of five lifestyle-related factors separately and cumulatively with hippocampal and total GMV, pooled across eight European cohorts.Methods: We included 3838 participants aged 18–90 years from eight cohorts of the European Lifebrain consortium. Using individual person data, we performed cross-sectional meta-analyses on associations of presence of lifestyle-related risk factors separately (overweight/obesity, physical inactivity, short sleep, smoking, high alcohol use) as well as a cumulative unhealthy lifestyle score (counting the number of present lifestyle-related risk factors) with FreeSurfer-derived hippocampal volume and total GMV. Lifestyle-related risk factors were defined according to public health guidelines.Results: High alcohol use was associated with lower hippocampal volume (r = −0.10, p = 0.021), and overweight/obesity with lower total GMV (r = −0.09, p = 0.001). Other lifestyle-related risk factors were not significantly associated with hippocampal volume or GMV. The cumulative unhealthy lifestyle score was negatively associated with total GMV (r = −0.08, p = 0.001), but not hippocampal volume (r = −0.01, p = 0.625).Conclusions: This large pooled study confirmed the negative association of some lifestyle-related risk factors with hippocampal volume and GMV, although with small effect sizes. Lifestyle factors should not be seen in isolation as there is evidence that having multiple unhealthy lifestyle factors is associated with a linear reduction in overall brain volume.
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| 5. |
- Friedman, Barbara Bodorkos, et al.
(författare)
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Are People Ready for Personalized Brain Health? Perspectives of Research Participants in the Lifebrain Consortium
- 2020
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Ingår i: The Gerontologist. - : Oxford University Press. - 0016-9013 .- 1758-5341. ; 60:6, s. E374-E383
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: A healthy brain is central to physical and mental well-being. In this multi-site, qualitative study, we investigated views and attitudes of adult participants in brain research studies on the brain and personalized brain health as well as interest in maintaining a healthy brain.DESIGN AND METHODS: We conducted individual interviews with 44 adult participants in brain research cohorts of the Lifebrain consortium in Spain, Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and coded using a cross-country codebook. The interview data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.RESULTS: Most participants did not focus on their own brain health and expressed uncertainty regarding how to maintain it. Those actively focusing on brain health often picked one specific strategy like diet or memory training. The participants were interested in taking brain health tests to learn about their individual risk of developing brain diseases, and were willing to take measures to maintain their brain health if personalized follow-up was provided and the measures had proven impact. The participants were interested in more information on brain health. No differences in responses were identified between age groups, sex, or countries.DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Concise, practical, personalized, and evidence-based information about the brain may promote brain health. Based on our findings, we have launched an ongoing global brain health survey to acquire more extensive, quantitative, and representative data on public perception of personalized brain health.
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