Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
BMC Neurol. 2013 Nov 6;13:165. doi: 10.1186/1471-2377-13-165.
A large number of longitudinal studies of population-based ageing cohorts are in progress internationally, but the insights from these studies into the risk and protective factors for cognitive ageing and conditions like mild cognitive impairment and dementia have been inconsistent. Some of the problems confounding this research can be reduced by harmonising and pooling data across studies. COSMIC (Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium) aims to harmonise data from international cohort studies of cognitive ageing, in order to better understand the determinants of cognitive ageing and neurocognitive disorders.
METHODS/DESIGN: Longitudinal studies of cognitive ageing and dementia with at least 500 individuals aged 60 years or over are eligible and invited to be members of COSMIC. There are currently 17 member studies, from regions that include Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. A Research Steering Committee has been established, two meetings of study leaders held, and a website developed. The initial attempts at harmonising key variables like neuropsychological test scores are in progress.
The challenges of international consortia like COSMIC include efficient communication among members, extended use of resources, and data harmonisation. Successful harmonisation will facilitate projects investigating rates of cognitive decline, risk and protective factors for mild cognitive impairment, and biomarkers of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Extended implications of COSMIC could include standardised ways of collecting and reporting data, and a rich cognitive ageing database being made available to other researchers. COSMIC could potentially transform our understanding of the epidemiology of cognitive ageing, and have a world-wide impact on promoting successful ageing.
国际上正在进行大量基于人群的老龄化队列的纵向研究，但这些研究对认知衰老以及轻度认知障碍和痴呆等疾病的风险和保护因素的见解并不一致。通过协调和汇总研究数据，可以减少一些混淆这项研究的问题。COSMIC（国际认知衰老研究联盟中的队列研究）旨在协调来自国际认知衰老和痴呆队列研究的数据，以更好地了解认知衰老和神经认知障碍的决定因素。
方法/设计：符合条件的研究包括对至少 500 名 60 岁或以上的认知衰老和痴呆的纵向研究，并邀请其成为 COSMIC 的成员。目前有 17 个成员研究，涵盖亚洲、澳大利亚、欧洲和北美地区。已经成立了一个研究指导委员会，举行了两次研究负责人会议，并开发了一个网站。正在尝试协调神经心理学测试分数等关键变量的初始工作。
像 COSMIC 这样的国际联盟面临的挑战包括成员之间的有效沟通、资源的广泛利用以及数据的协调。成功的协调将有助于调查认知衰退率、轻度认知障碍的风险和保护因素以及轻度认知障碍和痴呆的生物标志物的项目。COSMIC 的扩展意义可能包括收集和报告数据的标准化方式，以及为其他研究人员提供丰富的认知衰老数据库。COSMIC 有可能改变我们对认知衰老流行病学的理解，并在促进成功衰老方面产生全球性影响。
