Centres for Excellence in Neurodegeneration (COEN) and Joint Programme for Neurodegeneration Research (JPND)

Collaboration between international research centres and interdisciplinary researchers is crucial in advancing our understanding of Small Vessel Disease. SVD is a complex condition with multifaceted underlying mechanisms, including vascular, neurodegenerative, and inflammatory processes. The Row Fogo Centre draws together expertise from various disciplines such as neurology, radiology, pathology, genetics, medical physics, image analysis, and epidemiology to comprehensively investigate the diverse aspects of SVD pathology, risk factors, and clinical manifestations.

Moreover, SVD is a global health challenge affecting millions of people worldwide—and its prevalence is expected to rise with ageing populations. International collaboration enables researchers to study SVD in diverse populations, considering genetic, environmental, and socio-cultural factors that may influence disease susceptibility, progression, and response to treatment.

The EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) is the largest global research initiative aimed at tackling the challenge of neurodegenerative diseases. JPND endeavours to enhance collaborative funding across member nations to advance research targeting the origins, treatments, and caregiving methods for individuals affected by neurodegenerative diseases. JPND's overarching objective is to discover remedies for neurodegenerative diseases and facilitate timely diagnoses to enable targeted interventions at an early stage.

The COEN Initiative began in June 2010 with the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), Deutsche Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE, Germany), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

STRIVE Collaboration: 

The COEN Initiative funded and led to publication in 2013 of the STandards for ReportIng Vascular changes on nEuroimaging (STRIVE-1), which aimed to enhance the consistency and quality of research in Small Vessel Disease (SVD). It clarified definitions of various SVD features on neuroimaging, such as recent small subcortical infarcts, lacunes of presumed vascular origin, white matter hyperintensities, perivascular spaces, cerebral microbleeds, and brain atrophy.

Since its publication, STRIVE-1 findings and recommendations have been widely adopted in clinical and research settings, standardising image acquisition, reporting, and interpretation.

However, the field has seen significant advancements since 2013, prompting an update. Led by Professor Joanna Wardlaw (University of Edinburgh), Professor Marco Duering (University Hospital Munich and Medical Image Analysis Center Basel), Professor Eric Smith (University of Calgary), and Professor Martin Dichgans (University Hospital Munich), 54 international experts convened to develop STRIVE-2, building on the approach of STRIVE-1.

STRIVE-2 focuses on neuroimaging features and research applications, updating existing features and introducing emerging ones like cortical cerebral microinfarcts and incidental diffusion-weighted imaging positive lesions. Furthermore, it offers detailed guidance on key quantitative imaging markers of brain structure and function, along with standards for imaging and analysing SVD.