Foundational Study
The beginning of ONDRI’s research:
2013-2018
ONDRI’s Foundational Study recruited cohorts (or groups) of participants living with one of 5 diseases of interest.
Diverse cohorts
A total of 520 participants with lived experience were recruited, along with their care partners. The cohorts spanned site labs across the province, making the study geographically diverse, with richer data.
Foundational Study cohorts:
Alzheimer's/mild cognitive impairment participants
Frontotemporal lobar degeneration participants
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) participants
Parkinson's disease participants
Cerebrovascular disease participants
Video: Brief description of ONDRI foundational study by Doug Munoz PhD
5 Diseases – 8 assessments – 520 participants (plus care partners)
ONDRI research was designed to uncover cross-disease breakthroughs by having participants undergo the same 8 assessments (study protocols).
The resulting database holds promising data on disease progression and other health and lifestyle factors. This allows scientists to make exciting comparisons within diseases (e.g. across multiple assessments), and between diseases.
ONDRI’s multi-dimensional data
ONDRI’s rich, deep trove of Foundational study data can be understood using the 3 dimensions of the cube on the left:
- Assessment platforms – 8
- Diseases – 5
- Timeframe – 3 years (minimum), including baseline
This is why ONDRI created novel processes to standardize data
Each site lab produced data in technology-specific formats (to give an example, using different branded MRI machine formats). ONDRI researchers used special standardization tools and techniques to address this variation and enable effective cross-platform, cross-disease analysis of the data.
Foundational Study controlled data release
The Ontario Brain Institute in partnership with ONDRI has released the baseline data from ONDRI’s Foundational Study.
Benefit from the extensive work that has gone into collecting, cleaning and curating these data.
Related resources:
For Researchers: Details on data release and method papers
ONDRI participants showed incredible commitment
Being a Foundational Study participant required spending 3 days/year, over 3 years, attending assessment appointments. ONDRI researchers deeply appreciate this commitment.
Discovery through Aim 1
Aim 1 is devoted to mining the data from the Foundational Study and uncovering hypothesis-driven discoveries.
