Lay summary
Finding out if you have the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease from a simple blood test is getting closer to reality. In this project, we will investigate promising blood biomarkers of dementia, including pTau181, pTau217, amyloid beta (AB40 and AB42), neurofilament light chain, and glial fibrillary acidic protein, in middle-aged members of the Dunedin Study. Participants will be aged 52 so this project will tell us a lot about the processes of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias in their earliest stages, and may help to identify people who are at risk of developing Alzheimer's before they begin to show symptoms, when lifestyle and pharmacological treatments may be most effective. The wealth of data on the Dunedin Study members also gives us an unparalleled opportunity to investigate the risk and protective factors from across the lifecourse which may influence a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.