OPTIMA
The Oxford Project to Investigate Memory
and Ageing (OPTIMA) is an ongoing longitudinal multidisciplinary study. The 900 current subjects (control subjects and patients with dementia)
have been followed for several years. Every
year each subject is examined by neurological
and neuropsychological tests, CT and SPECT
brain scans, and biochemical analysis of
blood and cerebrospinal fluid. After death
the brain is examined by histochemical and biochemical methods.

OPTIMA provides the AD patients and controls
for the clinical trials (completed and ongoing)
that we fund. OPTIMA handles the sample
acquisition and patient follow-up and sends
patients’ blood samples to the Nagy laboratory
at the University of Birmingham, which performs
the analysis.