Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study - Christmas 2008

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Christmas Newsletter

The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Research Team: 2008-09

Pictured (L-R) front row: Ross Henderson, Janie Corley, Paula Davies, Alison Pattie, Catherine Murray and Alan Gow; back row: Lars Penke, Sarah Harris, Ian Deary, Michelle Luciano, Susana Munoz Maniega and Lorna Houlihan.

Merry Christmas from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Research Team

The past year has been another productive one for the LBC1936 study! We would like to take this opportunity to let you know about some of the new results that are coming out of the information that you have provided us with in the past (when you first came to see us between 2004-07). There’s also some information about how things are progressing with the next stage of the study, and an introduction to the new

members of our growing research team who are responsible for the ongoing collection of data and its analysis. We hope that you find this update interesting. Please do let us know if there is anything you think might be worth including in future newsletters. From all the team, we hope that you have also had a good year; all the best for Christmas and the New Year. The next stage of the study As you know, our aim in the LBC1936 study is to investigate how people’s thinking and memory skills (their cognitive abilities) change as they age: why do some people experience changes over

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study - Christmas 2008

time while others do not; what factors predict these changes? In addition, and as part of Help the Aged and the University of Edinburgh’s Disconnected Mind project, we are especially interested in how changes in the brain’s white matter – the wiring that connects different parts of the brain – might account for some of the changes seen in a person’s thinking skills. In order to study changes in the structure and function of the brain, we need to see the same group of people on a number of occasions. By being part of the LBC1936 you are therefore helping us to answer some of the big questions in terms of the ageing brain and the factors which might protect this. We started seeing many of you for the second time at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility last year and, by the end of 2008, we shall have seen over 450 people! We are very grateful to all those who have already returned for the repeat medical and cognitive tests and are delighted by the response we’ve been getting. If you haven’t already heard from us, we will be in touch in the next year or so. It will take until early 2010 for us to see everyone a second time and we look forward to catching up with you in the future. At this current stage of the study, we are also asking you to have a magnetic resonance brain scan and an ultrasound to look at the health of the main blood vessels in your neck. This happens about 2 months after your clinic visit and almost 350 people have already had their scans. The imaging team are developing and using advanced brain imaging methods to investigate how normal ageing affects the structure of the brain and whether changes here can predict the changes observed in thinking skills. As you know, we are particularly interested in the integrity of the brain’s white matter. White matter, which is the brain’s wiring, connects different regions of the brain

together and, if it is disrupted, will affect an individual’s ability to perform everyday mental tasks. Advanced image processing techniques are used to map the structure and integrity of white matter. We can look at the white matter integrity in specific ‘brain regions of interest’, or look at the integrity of white matter over the whole brain. One of the techniques used to study the brain’s wiring is called ‘tractography’ which uses the information from brain images to map individual white matter cables in the brain. You can see an example of some of the images produced below. We can then study the integrity of these white matter connections and how it relates with thinking skills from childhood and now. Again, thank you for your continued interest and enthusiasm for the study. We hope to see many more of you over the next 2 years.

Maps of major white matter tracts (above) and an average white matter shape within the brain produced from 100 LBC1936 participants (below).

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study - Christmas 2008

Research team As the study is growing, so too is the research team (as you can see from the picture on the first page). There should be some names you recognise from your previous visits though: Catherine, Janie, Ross, Paula and Alan. This team will continue to welcome you at the clinic and also analyse some of the information you provided in previous years. Mrs Alison Pattie has also recently joined the team and is looking forward to seeing many of you over the coming years (Alison also works with the LBC1921 study, and there’s a bit more about that later in the newsletter). In addition, we have welcomed to the team Dr Lorna Houlihan and Dr Kevin McGhee who join Dr Sarah Harris and Dr Michelle Luciano in looking for the genetic contributions to physical and cognitive health. Dr Maria Valdes Hernandez and Dr Susana Munoz Maniega are continuing to work with the information collected from the brain imaging session, alongside Professor Joanna Wardlaw and Dr Mark Bastin. It is this team who are developing and running the detailed analysis of the brain imaging data mentioned above. Dr Lars Penke has joined this part of the project and will be looking at the relationships between the imaging information and thinking skills. With this bigger research team, we know that the next few years will be very productive. We hope you’ll be interested to find out how things are progressing in terms of new scientific results, and later in the newsletter you can read more about some of our more recent findings. Supporting the LBC1936 To be able to run a study like the LBC1936 requires a great deal of support. We are very grateful to Help the Aged who fund the work we do, as part of the Disconnected Mind project. At Help the Aged, there is a dedicated team of people who are involved in raising the

Ian Deary speaking about your participation in the LBC1936 at a Help the Aged fundraising event (Picture: Help the Aged). funds needed to run the project, and keeping the project in the media spotlight. As part of this, they’ve run several high profile events including one at the Science Museum in London earlier this year. The event was a showcase for the work being done, and everyone who attended was very interested to hear about the things you are helping us to investigate. Professor Ian Deary spoke at the event, and made sure everyone knew what a special group you are – very few studies have the ability to look at mental abilities in childhood and again 60 years later! Our sincere thanks to our friends at Help the Aged who are making it possible for us to work with you on the LBC1936 study.

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study - Christmas 2008

Latest results While we’re continuing to see you over the next few years, we are also analysing the information you gave us at the first session in 2004-2007. Many of these findings are soon to appear in scientific journals and there is a flavour of these below, plus a fuller list at the end of the newsletter. If you’re interested in finding out more about any of these, please do get in touch. You can also check the study website where details will be updated as new publications appear. The first LBC1936 publication was a comprehensive description of the design, recruitment and testing at wave 1 (Deary et al., 2007). Findings to date have included a number of genetic analyses. For example, twenty-one differences in 11 genes, previously associated with Alzheimer’s disease, autism or cognition have been investigated. There was almost no evidence to suggest that these genes are associated with cognitive ability or change in the LBC1936 (Houlihan et al., in press). Further genetic results are reported in the papers listed at the end. In 2009, we will also be looking at some social background and lifestyle factors and how these might affect thinking skills, including diet and nutrition. These will be reported in future newsletters, and we hope you will be in interested in finding out more. New memory study In the LBC1936 study, we’re interested in changes in thinking and memory skills over time. You may remember from your visit to the clinic the different tests we used to assess your memory. Some of our colleagues in the Department of Psychology (Dr James Brockmole and Dr Louise Brown) are also interested in memory, and have been developing new tests to look at specific aspects of this in more detail. As you have already given us

A participant doing one of the new visual memory tasks. a great deal of information, they are very keen to invite you to take part in their study. Throughout next year, we will be writing to you on their behalf to tell you more about this. As they need about 200 people to help, it won’t involve everyone, but we hope you are interested to find out more. The invitation will come from us initially, and we will only allow James and Louise to contact you once you have given your permission. Some of you will hear more about the details over the coming months. Centre for research into the ageing brain In September, a new research Centre looking at the ageing process was formed at the University of Edinburgh. One of the key studies at the core of this new centre will be the LBC1936 study. Known as the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, it will be a centre of excellence to advance research into how ageing affects cognition, and how mental ability in youth affects health and longevity. Professor Ian Deary is the Centre Director and says: “The creation of this new Centre is a major encouragement for our research into the effects of cognition on life-long health and wellbeing, and of ageing on cognition. We are delighted to be able to create a hub for multidisciplinary research. It will go a

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study - Christmas 2008

long way towards bringing together our exciting current work, and create opportunities for new collaborations within and beyond the University. The collaborating scientists will put together the mechanistic accounts of how, through the lifespan, people’s psychological qualities affect their physical functions and vice versa.”

Researchers gather for the opening of the new Centre for ageing research. The centre will help to support and enhance much of the work we do with you in the LBC1936. And finally… You may remember we are following-up two groups of people who were tested when they were aged 11. One of these groups is you, the LBC1936, and the other is the LBC1921. These individuals, all born in 1921, have now been seen on 3 occasions (at ages 79, 83 and 87). You can see the list of publications that have come out of the LBC1921 study on our website, which will give you an idea of the sorts of things we’ll be looking at with you in the future. In addition, the LBC1921 findings are the subject of a recently published book. It was written by Professors Ian Deary, Lawrence Whalley and John Starr. They have been working together for over ten years following-up individuals, like you,

who took part in the Scottish Mental Surveys, both in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The book mainly focuses on the LBC1921 and the Aberdeen cohorts, although you may be interested to know that in the final chapter (Postscript: Looking Ahead) it says: “In the preceding chapters, we described the 10 years of follow-up work devoted to the Scottish Mental Surveys (SMSs) of 1932 and 1947. At the 10-year mark precisely, we passed another milestone. In the Edinburgh area of Scotland, we were recruiting and retesting people who took part in the SMS1947 [that’s you]. The milestone we passed late in May 2007 was the recruiting and retesting of the last participant—the 1091st—to take part in the first wave of the LBC1936. It is our largest follow-up sample to date. The

The new book about the follow-ups of the Scottish Mental Surveys The book includes how the LBC1921 and Aberdeen cohorts have contributed to our knowledge of how ageing affects the brain, and in particular, how this differs across individuals.

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study - Christmas 2008

story of the LBC1936 will be told in the coming years.” By being part of the LBC1936 you are helping to advance our knowledge of how our thinking skills change over time. If we produce another book about the next ten years of research, you can be sure you will be centre stage in this. Thanks again From all of the LBC1936 research team, thank you. We shall look forward to seeing you in 2009 and beyond.

Merry Christmas, and best wishes for a happy New

Year.

Yours sincerely, Professor Ian J. Deary, Study Director Ms Paula Davies, Study Secretary; Mrs Janie Corley, Mr Ross Henderson, Miss Catherine Murray, Mrs Alison Pattie, Research Associates, Dr Alan Gow, Research Fellow. Would you like to talk to us? You can contact us at:

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ.

Do, please, let us know if there is any change to your address. Details of how you can get in touch are given below. Telephone: 0131 651 1681 (Paula) Email: Alan.Gow@ed.ac.uk

www.lothianbirthcohort.ed.ac.uk Research publications The full references for the first research publications are given below. Please get in touch if you would like a copy of any of these articles.

Deary, I. J., Gow, A. J., Taylor, M. D., Corley, J., Brett, C., Wilson, V., Campbell, H., Whalley, L. J., Porteous, D. J., & Starr, J. M. (in press). The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936: a study to examine influences on cognitive ageing from age 11 to age 70 and beyond. BMC Geriatrics, 7, 28. Houlihan, L. M., Harris, S. E., Luciano, M., Gow, A. J., Starr, J. M., Visscher, P. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press). Replication study of candidate genes for cognitive abilities: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. Genes, Brain and Behavior. Luciano, M., Gow, A., Taylor, M. D., Hayward, C., Harris, S. E., Campbell, H., Porteous, D. J., Starr, J. M., Visscher, P. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press a). Apolipoprotein E is not related to memory abilities at 70 years of age. Behavior Genetics. Luciano, M., Gow, A. J., Harris, S. E., Hayward, C., Allerhand, M., Starr, J. M., Visscher, P. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press b). Cognitive ability at age 11 and 70 years, information processing speed, and APOE variation: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study. Psychology and Aging. Luciano, M., Miyajima, F., Lind, P. A., Bates, T. C., Horan, M., Harris, S. E., Wright, M. J., Ollier, W. E., Hayward, C., Pendleton, N., Gow, A. J., Visscher, P. M., Starr, J. M., Deary, I. J., Martin, H. G., & Payton, A. (in press c). Variation in the dysbindin gene and normal cognitive function in three independent population samples. Genes, Brain and Behavior. Penke, L. & Deary, I. J. (in revision). Some guidelines for structural equation modelling in cognitive neuroscience: The case of Charlton et al.’s study on white matter integrity and cognitive ageing. Neurobiology of Aging.