Summary: longitudinal, clinical-pathologic cohort study of vascular health and brain aging. Read overview paper>>
The original Vanderbilt Memory and Aging Project (VMAP) cohort included 335 community-dwelling participants age 60-92, including 168 individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 167 cognitively normal adults. At baseline, participants complete a physical and frailty examination, fasting blood draw, neuropsychological assessment, echocardiogram, cardiac MRI, and brain MRI. A subset undergo 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and lumbar puncture for cerebrospinal fluid collection.
In 2021, VMAP began enrolling participants in an expansion cohort, with the goal of recruiting an additional 650 participants by 2023.
Baseline cohort characteristics
As designed, participant groups were comparable for age (p = 0.31), sex (p = 0.95), and race (p = 0.65). MCI participants had greater Framingham Stroke Risk Profile scores (p = 0.008), systolic blood pressure values (p = 0.008), and history of left ventricular hypertrophy (p = 0.04) than NC participants. As expected, MCI participants performed worse on all neuropsychological measures (p-values < 0.001), were more likely to be APOEɛ4 carriers (p = 0.02), and had enhanced CSF biomarkers, including lower Aβ42 (p = 0.02), higher total tau (p = 0.004), and higher p-tau (p = 0.02) compared to NC participants.
Retention
VMAP’s annual attrition rate is 5% for the primary study visit and <10% for LP visits. VMAP’s annual attrition rates is lower among cognitively unimpaired participants (i.e., cognitively unimpaired annual attrition is 1% for primary study visit and <2% for LP visit).
