Table 2.
The Czech Brain Aging Study procedures
| Frequency | Procedure | Specification |
| Annually | Clinical exam | Standard complex neurology examination |
| Annually | Standard neuropsychology | Uniform Data Set10 11: Mini-Mental State Examination, digit span forward and backward, digit symbol, Trail Making Tests A and B, animal list generation, vegetable list generation, Boston Naming Test (30 odd items), logical memory and story A Premorbid ability estimation: National Adult Reading Test43 Memory assessment: Enhanced cued recall test,44 Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test,45 Brief Visuospatial Memory Test—Revised46 and ROCFT recall47 Executive functions: Prague Stroop Test,48 similarities (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - Revised),49 Controlled Oral Word Association Test,50 Visuoconstruction: Clock Test51 and ROCFT copy47 Functional scales: Clinical Dementia Rating Scale52 and Functional Assessment Questionnaire53 Symptoms of anxiety and depression: Geriatric Depression Scale (15 items version)42 and Beck Anxiety Inventory54 |
| Annually | Laboratory | Fasting glucose, lipid profile, homocysteine, vitamin B12, thyroid hormones, folic acid, renal and liver functions, C reactive protein and glycosylated haemoglobin |
| Annually | Vital functions | Blood pressure, pulse frequency, waist:hips ratio and Body Mass Index |
| Annually | Socioeconomic data | Marital status, type of living and current occupation |
| Annually | Questionnaires | Subjective cognitive complaints (Questionnaire de PLainte Cognitive),55 physical/mental activity at midlife and currently, Becke’s Habitual Physical Activity,56 Epworth Sleepiness Scale57 and Falls Self-Efficacy Scale—International58 |
| Biannually | MRI | 1.5T protocol: plane localiser, standard clinical T2, T1 three-dimensional isometric MPRAGE with isometric voxe, FLAIR, T2* and echoplanar imaging for diffusion tensor imaging with 32 directions 3T protocol: plane localiser; standard clinical T1 and T2; T1 three-dimensional isometric MPRAGE with isometric voxel; echoplanar imaging for diffusion tensor imaging with 64 directions; FLAIR; T2 fast spin echo; T2*; resting state functional MRI; switch to 3T MRI since 2015 in Brno, since 2019 in Prague |
| At baseline | Demography | Age, education, occupation and laterality |
| At baseline, all optional | Genotyping | Apolipoprotein E TOMM40, BDNF, CD36, BuChE, KIBRA, TREM2, PSEN 1, PSEN 2, APP, TARDBP, MAPT, GRN, C9orf72 |
| Subset at both centres | CSF | Amyloid β-42, total, tau, p-tau, oligoclonal bands, CSF biochemistry |
| Subset at both centres | Amyloid PET | PET/MRI or PET/CT (visual assessment), flutemetamol, dual-phase (‘perfusion’) PET |
| Prague cohort all | Spatial navigation22 23 27 | Hidden goal task, simple navigation task, path integration task, Y-maze assessment, intersections task, sea hero quest and spatial tasks in virtual reality/augmented virtual reality |
| Prague cohort optional | Experimental neuropsychology | Facial emotion recognition,59 60 famous faces identification,60 FNAME 12 items version,61 Memory Binding Test62 and spatial pattern separation task63
In-house developed tests: Famous Landmarks Identification,20 Episodic-like Memory Test64 and Arena Perspective-Taking Task65 |
| Brno cohort, all at baseline |
Specific questionnaires | Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire,66 OPD-2 (OPD Working Group)67 and early life trauma assessment |
CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; FLAIR, fluid-attenuated inversion recovery; MPRAGE, magnetisation-prepared rapid gradient echo; OPD, Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics; PET, positron emission tomography; ROCFT, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test.