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Perspective on the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative: Progress report and future plans
Author(s) -
Khachaturian Zaven S.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2010.04.002
Subject(s) - citation , library science , dementia , perspective (graphical) , computer science , psychology , medicine , disease , artificial intelligence , pathology
The current issue of Alzheimer’s & Dementia highlights the remarkable accomplishments of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) by publishing a series of articles reporting the progress of this multi-component project. The collection of papers in this issue of the Journal covers various aspects of ADNI’s history concerning how the ADNI was organized. The purpose of this editorial is to address the question of why the launch of the initiative was a landmark achievement for the field. This brief history is from the perspective of the National Institute of Aging (NIA) and its strategic goals and efforts to develop scientific programs and research infrastructure to support longitudinal clinical studies. This background should provide the reader with a better appreciation for the future roles that ADNI and ADNI-like programs will occupy. There are several key accomplishments of ADNI, particularly from a research planning perspective that include passing several critical mileposts in NIA’s efforts to develop, standardize, and validate various modalities of diagnostic tools. Yet, the genesis of the initiative itself serves as a vitally-important prototype for both public-private partnerships as well as capacity building for future large-scale collaborative studies. The ontogeny of why and how ADNI came about is multifaceted: there are several earlier initiatives and programs at the NIA that enabled the development of ADNI-like projects. Some of this early history concerning the development of diagnostic criteria, standardizing, and validating assessment tools are covered in greater detail elsewhere [1,2,3]. In the late 1990s to early 2000s, there were several events, people, and initiatives at the NIA and the Alzheimer’s Association that contributed to the conceptual development of ADNI. The history of precursor ideas and earlier efforts focusing on standardizing and validating diagnostic tools, as well as the problems in developing appropriate infrastructure for longitudinal studies, provides important context and rationale for organizing ADNI. In evaluating ADNI’s accomplishments, an important consideration is not only the question of why it was necessary to have public-private partnerships, but also the critical scientific questions and the ratelimiting programmatic concerns that ADNI was designed to address.