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Lothian Birth-cohort Studies
The Lothian birth-cohort studies are two ongoing cohort studies which primarily involve research into how childhood intelligence relates to intelligence and health in old age. The Lothian Birth Cohort studies of 1921 and 1936 have, respectively, followed up Lothian-based participants in the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947 in old age. Scottish Mental Survey data has provided a measure of the intelligence of Lothian Birth Cohort participants at age 11, which has enabled the investigation of how childhood intelligence relates to cognition, mental health and physical health in old age. Major cognitive ageing findings of the studies have concerned the stability of intelligence from childhood to old age, the influence of genetics on cognitive function and decline, and the role of the brain's white matter integrity in successful cognitive ageing. The studies have also been at the vanguard of the field of cognitive epidemiology, which explores how intelligence relates to physical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cohort Study
A cohort study is a particular form of longitudinal study that samples a Cohort (statistics), cohort (a group of people who share a defining characteristic, typically those who experienced a common event in a selected period, such as birth or graduation), performing a Cross-sectional data, cross-section at intervals through time. It is a type of panel study where the individuals in the panel share a common characteristic. Cohort studies represent one of the fundamental designs of epidemiology which are used in research in the fields of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, Psychological research, psychology, social science, and in any field reliant on 'difficult to reach' answers that are based on evidence (statistics). In medicine for instance, while clinical trials are used primarily for assessing the safety of newly developed pharmaceuticals before they are approved for sale, epidemiological analysis on how risk factors affect the incidence of diseases is often used to identify the caus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biotechnology And Biological Sciences Research Council
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds science, scientific research institutes and university research departments in the United Kingdom, UK. Purpose Receiving its funding through the science budget of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, BBSRC's mission is to "promote and support, by any means, high-quality basic, strategic and applied research and related postgraduate training relating to the understanding and exploitation of biological systems". Structure BBSRC's head office is at Polaris House in Swindon - the same building as the other councils of United Kingdom Research and Innovation, UK Research and Innovation, Arts and Humanities Research Council, AHRC Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EPSRC, Economic and Social Research Council, ESRC, Innovate U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morbidity
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are associated with specific signs and symptoms. A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions. For example, internal dysfunctions of the immune system can produce a variety of different diseases, including various forms of immunodeficiency, hypersensitivity, allergies, and autoimmune disorders. In humans, ''disease'' is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person affected, or similar problems for those in contact with the person. In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of structure and f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Adult Reading Test
The National Adult Reading Test (NART) is a widely accepted and commonly used method in clinical settings for estimating premorbid intelligence levels of (initially) English-speaking patients with dementia in neuropsychological research and practice. Such tests are called hold tests as these abilities are thought to be spared, or "held" following neurological injury or decline. The NART was developed by Hazel Nelson in the 1980s in Britain and published in 1982. The test comprises 50 written words in British English which all have irregular spellings (e.g. "aisle"), so as to test the participant's vocabulary rather than their ability to apply regular pronunciation rules. The manual includes equations for converting NART scores to predicted IQ scores on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The NART is widely used in research settings because a measure of premorbid intelligence is rarely available. However, the Lothian Birth Cohort Study has such data. Researchers from this st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Control Group
In the design of experiments, hypotheses are applied to experimental units in a treatment group. In comparative experiments, members of a control group receive a standard treatment, a placebo, or no treatment at all. There may be more than one treatment group, more than one control group, or both. A placebo control group can be used to support a double-blind study, in which some subjects are given an ineffective treatment (in medical studies typically a sugar pill) to minimize differences in the experiences of subjects in the different groups; this is done in a way that ensures no participant in the experiment (subject or experimenter) knows to which group each subject belongs. In such cases, a third, non-treatment control group can be used to measure the placebo effect directly, as the difference between the responses of placebo subjects and untreated subjects, perhaps paired by age group or other factors (such as being twins). For the conclusions drawn from the results of an ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxidative Stress
Oxidative stress reflects an imbalance between the systemic manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage. Disturbances in the normal redox state of cells can cause toxic effects through the production of peroxides and free radicals that damage all components of the cell, including proteins, lipids, and DNA. Oxidative stress from oxidative metabolism causes base damage, as well as strand breaks in DNA. Base damage is mostly indirect and caused by the reactive oxygen species generated, e.g., (superoxide radical), OH ( hydroxyl radical) and (hydrogen peroxide). Further, some reactive oxidative species act as cellular messengers in redox signaling. Thus, oxidative stress can cause disruptions in normal mechanisms of cellular signaling. In humans, oxidative stress is thought to be involved in the development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cancer, Parkin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single-nucleotide Polymorphisms
In genetics and bioinformatics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a sufficiently large fraction of the population (e.g. 1% or more), many publications do not apply such a frequency threshold. For example, a G nucleotide present at a specific location in a reference genome may be replaced by an A in a minority of individuals. The two possible nucleotide variations of this SNP – G or A – are called alleles. SNPs can help explain differences in susceptibility to a wide range of diseases across a population. For example, a common SNP in the CFH gene is associated with increased risk of age-related macular degeneration. Differences in the severity of an illness or response to treatments may also be manifestations of genetic variations caused by SNPs. For example, two common SNPs in the ''A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Candidate Gene
The candidate gene approach to conducting genetic association studies focuses on associations between genetic variation within pre-specified genes of interest, and Phenotype (clinical medicine), phenotypes or disease states. This is in contrast to genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which is a hypothesis-free approach that scans the entire genome for associations between common genetic variants (typically Single-nucleotide polymorphism, SNPs) and traits of interest. Candidate genes are most often selected for study based on ''a priori'' knowledge of the gene's biological functional impact on the trait or disease in question. The rationale behind focusing on allelic variation in specific, biologically relevant regions of the genome is that certain alleles within a gene may directly impact the function of the gene in question and lead to variation in the phenotype or disease state being investigated. This approach often uses the case-control study design to try to answer the questi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apolipoprotein E
Apolipoprotein E (Apo-E) is a protein involved in the metabolism of fats in the body of mammals. A subtype is implicated in Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular diseases. It is encoded in humans by the gene ''APOE''. Apo-E belongs to a family of fat-binding proteins called apolipoproteins. In the circulation, it is present as part of several classes of lipoprotein particles, including chylomicron remnants, VLDL, IDL, and some HDL. Apo-E interacts significantly with the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR), which is essential for the normal processing (catabolism) of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins. In peripheral tissues, Apo-E is primarily produced by the liver and macrophages, and mediates cholesterol metabolism. In the central nervous system, Apo-E is mainly produced by astrocytes and transports cholesterol to neurons via Apo-E receptors, which are members of the low density lipoprotein receptor gene family. Apo-E is the principal cholesterol carrier in the brain. Apo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allele
An allele is a variant of the sequence of nucleotides at a particular location, or Locus (genetics), locus, on a DNA molecule. Alleles can differ at a single position through Single-nucleotide polymorphism, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), but they can also have insertions and deletions of up to several thousand base pairs. Most alleles observed result in little or no change in the function or amount of the gene product(s) they code or regulate for. However, sometimes different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation. A notable example of this is Gregor Mendel's discovery that the white and purple flower colors in pea plants were the result of a single gene with two alleles. Nearly all multicellular organisms have two sets of chromosomes at some point in their biological life cycle; that is, they are diploid. For a given locus, if the two chromosomes contain the same allele, they, and the organism, are homozygous with re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Health Service Central Register
The National Health Service Central Register (NHSCR) is a Scottish Government database accessible to public bodies approved by the Scottish Parliament. The register was established in the early 1950s to facilitate the transfer of patients between health board areas or across borders within the countries of the United Kingdom. However, its role has expanded over the decades and it now also provides Scottish local authorities with a Unique Citizen Reference Number or UCRN used to identify people on their own databases. In 2006, the Scottish Government and the National Records of Scotland made a major expansion of the applications of the NHSCR by changing regulations with section 57 of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006. In 2015, the Scottish Government proposed expanding access to the NHSCR to more than 100 additional public bodies. The associated consultation received 302 responses. The proposed expansion was criticised by the Open Right ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Research Into Ageing
Help the Aged was a United Kingdom based international charity founded in 1961 by Cecil Jackson-Cole and Hugh Faulkner to help disadvantaged older people who were affected by poverty, isolation and neglect. It merged with Age Concern in 2009 to form Age UK. Organisation Help the Aged had national offices in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. As of 2005 the Charity employed over 1,800 people and had an income of £75 million per year. The Charity was an active campaigner on a number of issues affecting older people including: * Elder Abuse *Poverty among older * Health and Social Care * Neighbourhoods * Pensions and Benefits * Isolation and loneliness On 26 June 2008, and after years of campaigning by Help the Aged, the British Government announced new legislation aimed at making age discrimination illegal. Equalities Minister Harriet Harman unveiled the first draft of the Equalities Bill in Parliament to outlaw discrimination through the provision of goods and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
