Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Dec;102(3):535-561.
doi: 10.1177/13872877241290990. Epub 2024 Dec 5.

Impact of a national dementia research consortium: The Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA)

Howard Chertkow  1   2   3   4 Natalie Phillips  5 Kenneth Rockwood  6 Nicole Anderson  7   3 Melissa K Andrew  6   8 Robert Bartha  9   10 Camille Beaudoin  11 Nathalie Bélanger  1 Pierre Bellec  12   13 Sylvie Belleville  12   13 Howard Bergman  1   14   15 Sarah Best  16 Jennifer Bethell  17 Louis Bherer  12   18   19 Sandra Black  2   20   21 Michael Borrie  22   16   23 Richard Camicioli  24   25   26 Julie Carrier  13   27 Neil Cashman  28   29 Senny Chan  30 Lynden Crowshoe  31 Claudio Cuello  32   33 Max Cynader  34 Thanh Dang-Vu  35   12 Samir Das  11 Roger A Dixon  36   37   38 Simon Ducharme  39   39 Gillian Einstein  40   7   30 Alan C Evans  32   11   41   42 Margaret Fahnestock  43   44 Howard Feldman  45   46   29 Guylaine Ferland  47 Elizabeth Finger  48 John D Fisk  49 Jennifer Fogarty  16 Edward Fon  32   50 Ziv Gan-Or  32   50 Serge Gauthier  32   39   51 Carol Greenwood  52 Charlie Henri-Bellemare  11 Nathan Herrmann  20   53 David B Hogan  54   55 Robin Hsiung  28   37 Inbal Itzhak  1 Kristen Jacklin  56 Krista Lanctôt  20   53   57 Andrew Lim  20   58 Ian MacKenzie  59 Mario Masellis  2   20 Colleen Maxwell  60   61   62 Carrie McAiney  60   63 Katherine McGilton  64   17   65 JoAnne McLaurin  20   66 Alex Mihailidis  17   67 Zia Mohades  11 Manuel Montero-Odasso  16   68   69 Debra Morgan  70 Gary Naglie  71   72 Haakon Nygaard  28   29 Megan O'Connell  70   73 Ron Petersen  74 Randi Pilon  1 Maria Natasha Rajah  75 Mark Rapoport  20   53 Pamela Roach  55   76 Julie M Robillard  77   28 Ekaterina Rogaeva  78 Pedro Rosa-Neto  32   39   51 Jane Rylett  79   80 Joel Sadavoy  58   81 Peter St George-Hyslop  78 Dallas Seitz  55   82 Eric Smith  55   83 Bojana Stefanovic  20   84 Isabelle Vedel  1   15 Jennifer D Walker  85   86 Cheryl Wellington  59   29 Victor Whitehead  1 Walter Wittich  87
Affiliations
Review

Impact of a national dementia research consortium: The Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA)

Howard Chertkow et al. J Alzheimers Dis. 2024 Dec.

Abstract

The Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA) was created by the Canadian federal government through its health research funding agency, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), in 2014, as a response to the G7 initiative to fight dementia. Two five-year funding cycles (2014-2019; 2019-2024) have occurred following peer review, and a third cycle (Phase 3) has just begun. A unique construct was mandated, consisting of 20 national teams in Phase I and 19 teams in Phase II (with research topics spanning from basic to clinical science to health resource systems) along with cross-cutting programs to support them. Responding to the needs of researchers within the CCNA teams, a unique sample of 1173 deeply phenotyped patients with various forms of dementia was accrued and studied over eight years (COMPASS-ND). In the second phase of funding (2019-2024), a national dementia prevention program (CAN-THUMBS UP) was set up. In a short time, this prevention program became a member of the World Wide FINGERS prevention consortium. In this article, the challenges, successes, and impacts of CCNA in Canada and internationally are discussed. Short-term deliverables have occurred, along with considerable promise of impacts in the longer term. The creation of synergy, networking, capacity building, engagement of people with lived experience, and economies of scale have contributed to the considerable success of CCNA by all measures. CCNA is evidence that an organized "centrally-organized" approach to dementia research can catalyze important progress nationally and yield significant and measurable results.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; cohort; dementia; prevention; research plan; sex; synergy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestsDrs. Krista Lanctot, Manuel Montero-Odasso, Sylvie Belleville, and Julie Robillard, are Editorial Board Members of this journal but were not involved in the peer-review process of this article nor had access to any information regarding its peer-review.

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources