Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative in Europe

The North American Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) was originally conceived as a study to develop markers of disease progression, but has also become a strong technological platform for the multi-centric collection of clinical data and imaging and biological markers. Because the ADNI platform was first imported in Europe, thanks to the pilot European ADNI, several ADNI-related initiatives have flourished, funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme, national governments, and the Alzheimer's Association aimed at: (i) collecting fresh data ADNI style (FP7 AddNeuroMed, Innovative Medicine Initiative Pharma-Cog/European ADNI, Swedish ADNI, and Italian ADNI); (ii) developing standard operational procedures for the collection of markers (International Harmonization of CSF Abeta42 and tau, and European Alzheimer's Disease Consortium-ADNI Harmonization of Hippocampal Volumetry); and (iii) developing infrastructures for the treatment of ADNI data (FP7 neuGRID and outGRID, and the French Centre pour l'Acquisition et le Traitement de l'Image). Although this fragmented scenario is not surprising given the structure of scientific funding in Europe, opportunities are being developed for high order networking and harmonization at the continental level (Joint Programming for Neurodegenerative Diseases).