On the 6th October 2023 the PREVENT General Assembly was hosted by Prof Paresh Malhotra at Imperial College London. We had a great day hearing about all the recent analysis that is underway and the next steps planned for when the wave 2 follow-up data is released later this year.
A core focus of the PREVENT General Assembly this year was the discussion of the PREVENT rugby cohort data which has recently been made available for analysis. Researchers Prof Willie Stewart, Natalie Jenkins and Dr Marialena Dounavi have been working hard on the initial analysis of the data which will now be explored further and compared with data from the main PREVENT programme.
From the main programme, Dr Sarah Gregory presented dietary analysis that has been conducted looking at the PREVENT diet data and how this compares to the UK’s Eatwell guide. Dr Axel Laurell presented the latest analysis of the PREVENT sleep data which has been analysed alongside the brain imaging data focusing on a particular area of the brain called the Hypothalamus.
An important discussion from the day was also the plans for biomarker analysis, Prof Leonidas Chouliaras presented options to consider for this and the group discussed plans for funding this work.
Sub-studies
We had a fantastic showcase from the various study groups working on the PREVENT sub-studies.
Amongst these were presentations from Dr Meher Lad who presented the progress being made in the Auditory Attention in PREVENT (AudCog) study where he is now starting to analyse the data collected from the initial participants.
Dr Tom Macgillivray also presented the incredible work being carried out at the University Edinburgh conducting retinal imaging in the PREVENT Edinburgh participants. To date 219 participants have completed retinal imaging and 125 participants have returned for a follow-up scan. Of these 59 ex-professional sports players have completed the study and Dr Macgillivray will be working with Prof Willie Stewart and Prof Craig Ritchie to analyse this data alongside the core data collected as part of the rugby cohort.
Next Generation Brain health
We also had a presentation from the researchers working on the Next generation brain health programme which is focusing on 18-39 year olds. Katie Wells presented the activities the group has been up to in the past year and provided an update on the progress of the Next Generation Brain health survey which is an online survey for 18-39 year olds launched in September which has had 400 responses to date.
Dr Francesca Farina then presented the outstanding work being conducted with Dr Maritza Pintado-Caipa in Peru who is conducting a brain health survey with young adults in the country living in remote rural areas who would not have access to computers to conduct an online survey. We look forward to hearing more about the results from this study once the data is fully analysed.
The day was a fantastic opportunity to gather together researchers working across PREVENT to see what they are currently working on and discuss the next steps for the programme. We are now looking forward to the visit 2 follow-up data being released for analysis at the end of this year which will be an exciting time for the programme as this will be the first longitudinal analysis of the dataset allowing us to compare whether there have been any changes from the initial baseline assessments.
-The PREVENT Dementia team.
