COSMIC Projects

CHeBA Consortia - COSMIC
Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium: An international consortium to combine data from population-based longitudinal cohorts studies to identify common risk factors for dementia and cognitive decline.

Current Projects​​​​

  1. Body mass index and cognitive decline in diverse ethno-regional groups
    1. Workgroup leader: Darren Lipnicki (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: Examine associations between body mass index, cognition and dementia in diverse ethno-regional groups.
  2. Decline in verbal and visual memory in mild cognitive impairment: predictors of AD and associations with biomarkers
    1. Workgroup leader: Javier Oltra Cucarella (University of Alicante, Spain)
    2. Aims: To expand upon an earlier COSMIC project by using a Reliable Change Index to quantify cognitive decline separately for verbal memory and visual memory in individuals with aMCI, and to investigate whether decline in either outperforms biomarkers for predicting risk of AD. Also, we will use MRI data to investigate any differences in brain connectivity between individuals with aMCI who decline in verbal memory tests, visual memory tests, or both (in collaboration with researchers at the IBERBASKE Research Institute).
  3. The relationship between alcohol use trajectories and health, mortality and cognition in older adults
    1. Workgroup leader: Louise Mewton (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: To examine inter-individual variation in the relationship between drinking trajectories and a range of variables related to health, mortality and cognition in adults aged 60+ years.
    3. Preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/7835k/
  4. Sleep, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Dementia in Elderly Cohorts with Ethnoracial Diversity
    1. Workgroup leader: Seung Wan Suh (Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, South Korea)
    2. Aim: To identify subjective sleep parameters at baseline which have significant associations with cognitive decline at follow-up, and to investigate the association between a specific pattern of changes of sleep parameters over follow-up and cognitive decline.
  5. Risk of MCI and dementia after cancer, and vice versa
    1. Workgroup leader: Darren Lipnicki (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: To determine if individuals with a history of cancer are at greater risk of developing MCI or dementia, and if individuals with MCI or dementia are at greater risk of developing cancer, and to do this in consideration of ethno-regional differences, MCI and dementia subtypes, type of cancer, and cancer treatment.
  6. Nutrition and cognitive health in the older population: emphasis on food groups consumption and dietary patterns
    1. Workgroup leader: Costas Anastasiou (Harokopio University, Greece)
    2. Aim: To examine the association between consumption of food groups, in isolation or in their combination into specific dietary patterns, and cognitive function in the older population.
  7. The relationship between blood pressure and risk of cognitive decline
    1. Workgroup leader: Matthew Lennon (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: To examine the effect of blood pressure and antihypertensives on cognitive function in late life. Specifically: (1) The relationship of hypertension (including systolic and diastolic) with cognitive decline and dementia; (2) The relationship of hypotension with cognitive decline and dementia; (3) Differences in late life blood pressure trajectories among those who maintain normal cognition or develop MCI/dementia; (4) If antihypertensive treatment and type are related to risk of cognitive decline; (5) Ethno-regional differences in hypertension as a risk for cognitive decline and dementia.
  8. Development and validation of risk models for the prediction of dementia in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A consortium of population-based cohort studies
    1. Workgroup leader: Eduwin Pakpahan (Newcastle University Institute of Aging, UK)
    2. Aim: To undertake a detailed program of research into dementia risk prediction modelling from harmonized data across low- and middle-income countries.
  9. Rates of progression to dementia in diverse ageing populations, using different dementia harmonisation methods including delta
    1. Workgroup leader: Ben Lam (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: To explore the use of continuous proxies for dementia like the latent variable delta and CFC to form harmonised dementia classifications across COSMIC cohorts. Dementia will be classified from the continuous measures by applying appropriate cut-points. Levels of agreement between such dementia classifications and those derived from consensus diagnoses will be examined. We will use the dementia classifications developed to determine rates of progression to dementia and how these vary with demographic and other characteristics.
  10. The association between cardiovascular risk factor variability with dementia risk and cognitive impairment
    1. Workgroup leader: Phillip Tully (University of Adelaide)
    2. Aim: To examine whether variability in cardiovascular risk factors is independently associated with dementia and cognitive impairment.
  11. Maximizing dementia risk reduction: the impact of demographic/diversity factors on a modifiable dementia risk score
    1. Workgroup leader: Kay Deckers (Maastricht University, The Netherlands)
    2. Aim: To investigate whether there are differences in dementia risk factor profiles (LIBRA scores) based on important demographic/diversity factors such as sex, educational level, ethnicity/race and socioeconomic status.
  12. Sex differences in risk factors for dementia and cognitive decline
    1. Workgroup leader: Jessica Gong (The George Institute)
    2. Aim: To provide a complete, systematic and comprehensive analysis of sex differences in risk factors for dementia using standardised methods, as opposed to examining a single risk factor and its association with dementia at a time.
  13. The prevalence of poor mobility in older adults: A coordinated analysis from the COSMIC collaboration
    1.  Workgroup leader: Caterina Rosana & Briana Sprague (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
    2. Aim: (1) Is the prevalence of poor mobility (via objective measure of gait speed and self-reported measures of physical disability such as ADL/IADLs) similar across countries, and (2) What are the most common predictors of poor mobility across countries?
  14. Social Health and Reserve in the Dementia patient journey project
    1. Workgroup leader: Suraj Samtani (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: (1) Examine the variance in cognitive function explained by social health; (2) Study the trajectory of social health as individuals progress from MCI to dementia; (3) Investigate the pathways that mediate the relationship between social and cognitive health; (4) Examine the variance in social health explained by cognitive function, physical health, and APOE*4.
  15. Differential effect of family history on the risk for dementia by sex
    1. Workgroup leader: Jong Bin Bae (Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, South Korea)
    2. Aim: To investigate if the association between familial history of dementia and dementia risk differs by sex; also to investigate whether the association between a familial history of dementia and dementia risk is different for a history of dementia in the father or brothers compared to a history of dementia in the mother or sisters.
  16. The Global burden of dementia
    1. Workgroup leader: Louise Mewton (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: (1) Describe the prevalence, incidence and severity of dementia by age and sex for each contributing study and whether these vary across countries; (2) Use mortality records to investigate excess mortality attributable to dementia and how this may vary across countries; (3) Calculate relative risks and population attributable fractions for various risk factors.
  17. White matter lesions and their neuropsychological correspondence
    1. Workgroup leader: Jiyang Jiang (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: (1) Examine effects of age, sex, and ethnicity on white matter lesion (WML) measures; (2) Study how WML measures and changes in WML measures over time are associated with cognitive domain scores, MCI and dementia; (3) Examine how WML measures are associated with neuropsychological and motion disorders.
  18. The association between diet and depression in older adults
    1. Workgroup leader: Annabel Matison (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: To assess the longitudinal relationship between baseline diet and incident depression and/or change in depressive symptoms over time.
  19. Trajectories of cognitive decline before and after stroke
    1. Workgroup leader: Jessica Lo (CHeBA)
    2. Aim: (1) Map the trajectory of cognitive function pre- and post-stroke, compared with the trajectories of stroke-free individuals and stratify the trajectories by patient characteristics, in both white and non-white populations; (2) Investigate shared risk and protective factors between Alzheimer’s disease and stroke.
  20. Untangling the mechanistic links between heart and brain health in older populations: An AI assisted toolkit for assessing dementia risk
    1. Workgroup leader: Blossom Stephan (University of Nottingham, UK)
    2. Aim: Use artificial Intelligence (AI) methods synthesising clinical/biological, lifestyle, health, and socio-demographic data to develop novel models for predicting risk of incident dementia in the context of cardiovascular disease.
  21. Neuropsychiatric Symptoms and Risk of Cognitive Decline and Dementia in Older Adults with Ethnoracial Diversity
    1. Workgroup leader: Dae Jong Oh (Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center)
    2. Aim: (1) To identify neuropsychiatric symptoms at baseline which have significant associations with cognitive decline, identified as deterioration in cognitive test scores, or as transitions from normal to MCI or dementia, and from MCI to dementia. (2) To investigate associations between patterns of change in neuropsychiatric symptoms during follow-up and cognitive decline.

    For completed projects see the Publications page