IONA Longitudinal Cohort Study

IThe IONA Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) will provide a well-phenotyped (combining data on risk factors for dementia, cognitive assessment results, disease biomarkers and genetics) population representative of the Scottish population aged 50 and above across the spectrum of risk for, and the earliest disease stages of, AD dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions. Recent therapeutic successes in the treatment of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) due to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild AD, as well as progressions in diagnostic tools such as blood-based biomarkers, has energised the field to develop more specific diagnostics and therapies following the best principles of precision medicine. Large, 'real world' cohorts are needed to understand whether these, and other future breakthroughs, are valid in real world populations away from highly selective clinical trials. Precision medicine requires identification of disease sub-populations who share similar diagnostic profiles that reflect similar disease mechanisms and hence are likely to respond consistently to specific therapeutic interventions. This will require detailed clinical, genetic and biological phenotyping. IONA LCS will recruit uniquely in Scotland and will ensure that a large, diverse, real-world population will be available to drive developments globally of more accurate diagnostics and accelerate the development of new disease modifying therapies.