Cerebrovascular diseases, combined with neurological disorders are one of the important contributors to the global disease burden worldwide. Most of the diseases, such as stroke, dementia, and movement disorders are complex diseases derived from the interplay of multiple factors. Many studies have explored how genetics, lifestyles, and other clinical markers are related to the disease. However, limited studies used large cohort data. In this project, we aim to identify the life-course factors that associate or predict cerebrovascular and neurological diseases. We would like to focus on the genetics (rare mutations, SNPs, etc.), environmental factors (diets, lifestyle, gastrointestinal microbiome), measured biomarkers (lipids, urea, A!40/42, NFL, GFAP etc), and neuroimaging markers (brain MRI etc.), and study how they relate to the those diseases from sub-clinical pathological and functional change to clinical diagnosis. The duration of the project is expected to be at least three years. We aim to leverage the entire UKB cohort, and our methods will be data-driven with big data analytics. We hope this project will inform effective prevention, diagnosis and even treatment of cerebrovascular diseases and neurological disorders.
