This joint proposal in response to TW-03-007, Brain Disorders in the Developing World: Research Across the Lifespan, describes a 2 year needs assessment, research infrastructure development, clinical education and research training plan that seeks to establish a sustainable research collaboration between the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion in Mexico City and the University of Pennsylvania's Alzheimer's Disease Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The long-term goal of this proposal is to establish the structural framework and personal connections necessary to carry out collaborative research studies that will address issues of relevance to both Mexico and the United States. Specifically, the proposal will link the faculty and staff of the University of Pennsylvania's Alzheimer's Disease Center, including its Clinica Latina Para Trastornos de la Memoria, with the Geriatric department faculty and staff of the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion through a series of educational and research programs designed to accomplish the joint goals of both groups. A main focus of this proposal is the implementation of standardized methods of clinical assessment, data handling, and data transfer in order to create the critical infrastructure necessary for successful collaborative research. The clinical assessment protocol will be designed to be compatible with the existing and evolving National Institute on Aging funded National Alzheimer Coordinating Center Minimum Data Set in order to both maximize the ability for comparative analysis and to facilitate future collaborations between the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion and the 29 Alzheimer's Disease Centers in the United States. A second key goal of this proposal is the development and implementation of joint clinical education programs and clinical research training programs that will focus on issues of brain aging and dementia. And finally, with consideration of the information that comes from the needs assessment component, data from an initial survey of the prevalence of dementia in Mexico City will be used to design and carryout of a pilot clinical research project that will lay the groundwork for a larger study to be proposed in response to a subsequent National Institutes of Health request for applications.
