Project

OVERVIEW

Taiwan ADNI (TW-ADNI) will compare neuroimaging, biological and clinical information from study participants seeking correlations among the data that will track the progress of memory loss from its earliest stages. Neuroimaging research has suggested that PET or MRI may serve as a more sensitive and consistent measure of disease progression than the neuropsychological and cognitive assessments now typically used in research. Ultimately, standardizing the methodology for neuroimaging could provide a better way to compare results from different trials and studies, a major goal of the Initiative.

What is learned from the study will be used to help researchers and clinicians develop new treatments and monitor their effectiveness, increasing safety and efficiency of drug development by decreasing the time and cost of clinical trials. The project is the most comprehensive effort to date to find neuroimaging and other biomarkers for the cognitive changes associated with MCI and AD, and in cooperation with world wide ADNI (WW-ADNI) including:

• North Amerian-ADNI http://www.adni-info.org/Home.aspx
• European-ADNI: European ADNI (E-ADNI) began as a pilot project funded by the Alzheimer's Association in 2005.
• Japanese-ADNI: http://www.j-adni.org/
• Australian-ADNI: http://www.aibl.csiro.au/
• China-ADNI: http://english.baad.org.cn/China_ADNI/index.shtml
• Korean-ADNI: http://www.alz.org/research/funding/partnerships/korean-adni.pdf
• Taiwan-ADNI: https://sites.google.com/a/cgmh-mi.com/tadni/research

SCOPE

1. We will have a small start-up project for three to four medical centers and one subject for each to test the feasibility of image and biomarker protocols.
2. The second step will involve 100, 250, 50 cases of healthy control, MCI and AD subjects for more medical centers in Taiwan.

Specific aims

1. Establish Taiwan normal brain data
2. Establish Taiwan MCI/AD brain data (Imaging / Biomarkers)
3. Fundamental data for clinical trails in preventive/therapeutic drug in AD
4. Fundamental data for brain bank in Taiwan

Grant support

1. 2012 National Research Program for Biopharmaceuticals – Translational medicine project: ” Amyloid Accumulation after Mild Traumatic Brain Injury” (101TM1072 approved)
2. 2013 National Research Program for Biopharmaceuticals – Clinical Trials Project ” Establish Taiwan Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative – a three-year pilot study” (102CTP2003 letters of intent approved). Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT01624389