BRAID: Brain Frailty Integrated through Data Federation

Brain frailty describes the cumulative burden of structural and functional brain damage that increases the risk of cognitive decline, dementia, stroke and poor recovery from illness. Understanding these risks requires analysis of large and diverse datasets, including brain imaging, clinical records, and demographics.

Because these datasets are highly sensitive, they cannot be freely shared between organisations. BRAID will test how federated analysis across multiple TREs can enable large-scale brain health research without moving sensitive data.

The project will bring together partners including the University of Nottingham, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, SAIL Databank, the University of the West of England and the Dementias Platform UK TRE. Using advanced analytics and machine learning on synthetic datasets, the project will develop TRE-ready brain frailty data analytics and evaluate the performance, scalability, and governance of the federated TRE infrastructure.

Public engagement will run throughout the project. Workshops will explore public perspectives on brain data use, privacy and federated research technologies, ensuring that new approaches are developed in ways that are transparent and aligned with public expectations.

By the end of the project, BRAID will:

• Develop TRE-ready analytics pipelines for identifying brain frailty biomarkers
• Evaluate federated TRE infrastructure for complex brain frailty analytics in terms of efficiency, scalability and governance
• Produce recommendations to improve TREvolution technologies
• Document public perspectives on responsible brain health data research

Project information

Lead organisation: University of Nottingham
Principal investigator: Grazziela Figueredo
Project duration: 12 months
Project partners: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Dementias Platform UK (DPUK)
Funding provided: £454,345
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