Why Is This Important
Scentific Research
Your participation in the Healthy Brain Project can help transform the way that we conduct and communicate our science. At the Healthy Brain Project, we aim to understand how genes may influence risk for developing brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. By understanding the genetic underpinnings of diseases, we will obtain important insights into the biological bases of brain disorders, which in turn will provide clues for the development of treatment strategies to slow or even stop the progression of these brain diseases. We are also aiming to understand how risk factors that begin to develop in mid-life (e.g., high cholesterol levels, physical inactivity, diabetes), and protective factors (e.g., social engagement, occupational complexity, diet) act by themselves or together to infer risk for these brain disorders. As these factors are often modifiable, understanding them will mean that we will be able to better inform the types of lifestyle interventions required to help delay disease progression.
Community
We recognise and appreciate the invaluable amount of time and energy that our volunteers have given to the Healthy Brian Project.A key aim of this initiative is to build a community that is interested and invested in learning more about brain health. As such, we encourage all our volunteers to participate in our Healthy Brain Talk forums, where you will have the opportunity to discuss recent brain health articles in the media, have your brain health questions answered by one of our experts, support each other in your individual brain health journeys, and be invited to our public lectures, where you will hear about our latest research and meet the brains behind protecting yours. We are also aiming to build a large database of brain health so that we will be able to provide you with some information of how healthy your brain is relative to the general population. At return visits, you will also be able to see how your brain health is tracking over time. Please note that this is NOT a diagnostic service, and we highly recommend that you speak with your primary care physician should you have any concerns about your brain health.
Clinical Trails
One of the reasons why brain disorders are so hard to cure is because of the length, cost and challenge of conducting clinical trials. The development of a single drug typically takes many, many years. By participating in the Healthy Brain Project, and by completing our surveys and thinking tests, we are able to better identify individuals who may benefit from being in a clinical trial. This pre-screening process does not only save clinical trials a lot of time, but also allows identified volunteers priority access to brain-health therapeutics. We would like to stress that any information you provide will remain strictly confidential and will only be accessed by the Healthy Brain Project team. Before we provide any information to clinical trials, we will ALWAYS seek your written permission. It is also important to note that if you have been identified for participation in a clinical trial, it DOES NOT mean that you are necessarily at risk of a brain disorder. Many clinical trials require healthy volunteers to act as a basis for comparison. It is as important for us to understand normality as it is for us to understand abnormality.
