Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (CamCAN)

The Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) is a large-scale project using epidemiological, cognitive, and neuroimaging data to understand how individuals can best retain cognitive abilities into old age. There are 5 phases (stages), with data available from Phases 1-3 here (Phase 4 repeat cognitive and lifestyle data, and Phase 5 with repeat cognitive, lifestyle and neuroimaging data, will be released in 2027).

Phase 1 collected demographic, health, lifestyle and some basic cognitive data during a 2 hour home interview on approximately 2700 adults in the Cambridge area, recruited via GP surgeries, between 2010-2012 (sometimes called "home interview" stage).
Phase 2 collected more cognitive data, 1 hour of MRI, 0.5 hour of MEG and physiological measurements (details below) on a subset of Phase 1, aiming for 100 people per decade from 18-88 years of age. This involved 2 visits to the MRC CBU.
There are two arms of Phase 2: Arm 1 is the main arm (sometimes called the "CC700", since aimed for 7 decades x 100 people), conducted between 2011-2013. Arm 2 was conducted later, 2015-2017, and collected data from another ~80 people from Phase 1, half of whom were chosen for low scores on the MMSE/ACER test for dementia (sometimes called the "frail").
Phase 3 involved repeat MRI and MEG scanning during more complex tasks on people from Phase 2 (Arm 1), aiming for 40 people per decade (sometimes called the "CC280"), involving 3 visits to the MRC CBU between 2012-2014 (1-3 years after Phase 2).

Note that the imaging data are too large to share as a single BIDS repository with all participants and all modalities (and researchers normally want just certain modalities). So they are shared as separate BIDS repositories for each modality, and have to be selected separately. A more detailed description of Phases 1-3 (except Arm2) can be found in Shafto et al. (2014). Further details about the dataset, including details of the assessment measures and imaging sequences used, can be found under "Additional Information", below. The latest news about the project, including any issues that have been reported with the datasets, can be found here. Important: Do read the Terms & Conditions below, else your request may be rejected. We reject a lot of applications that 1) simply request ALL the data, along with a very vague hypothesis or something about AI and data mining, 2) come from students, or 3) do not provide a valid academic affiliation. Please only select the subset of data types that you explain in your proposal to be directly relevant to the hypotheses you want to test (or broad categories of questions in the case of the Home Interview data). And as stated in Point 4 of the Terms & Conditions below: we require the supervisors of undergraduate/masters/PhD students to request data, not the students themselves!

Datasets (click to expand)

There are 14 datasets available as part of the CamCAN project:

Phase 2, Arm 1 (CC700) Raw MRI	Raw MRI data (T1, T2, MTR, DTI, fMRI) from Phase 2, Arm 1, of the CamCAN project (CC700)
Phase 2, Arm 1 (CC700) Raw MEG	Raw MEG data from Phase 2, Arm 1 of the CamCAN project (CC700)
Phase 2, Arm 2 (Frail) Raw MRI	Raw MRI data (T1, T2, MTR, DTI, fMRI) from Phase 2, Arm 2 of the CamCAN project (CCFrail)
Phase 2, Arm 2 (Frail) Raw MEG	Raw MEG data from Phase 2, Arm 2 of the CamCAN project (CCFrail)
Phase 3 (CC280) Raw MRI	Raw MRI data (T1, T2, MTR, DTI, fMRI) from Phase 3 of the CamCAN project (CC280)
Phase 3 (CC280) Raw MEG	Raw MEG data from Phase 3 of the CamCAN project (CC280)
Phase 1, Home Interview, Cognitive Data	Data from all behavioural and cognitive assessments carried out during the Phase 1 Home Interview of the CamCAN project (CC3000).
Phase 2, Arm 1 Cognitive Data	Data from all behavioural and cognitive assessments carried out during Phase 2 of the CamCAN project (CC700).
Phase 2, Arm 2 (Frail) Cognitive Data	Data from all behavioural and cognitive assessments carried out during Phase 2 Arm 2 of the CamCAN project (CCfrail).
Phase 2, Arm 1 Physiological Data	Data from all physiological measures collected during Phase 2, Arm 1 of the CamCAN project (CC700), including cardiovascular measures, height and weight.
Phase 2, Arm 2 Physiological Data	Data from all physiological measures collected during Phase 2, Arm 2 of the CamCAN project (CCfrail), including cardiovascular measures, height and weight.
Phase 1 Home Interview data	Data from home interview questionnaire during Phase 1 of the CamCAN project (CC700), including demographics, health, lifestyle, MMSE, etc
Phase 1 EPAQ Data	Optional extra Electronic Personal Assessment Questionnaire from Phase 1 of the CamCAN project
Phase 1 Derived Measures	Additional variables (e.g, years of education MMSE score) derived from data collected during Phase 1 of the CamCAN project

Additional Information (click to expand)

Below are some details of the Phase 1 and Phase 2, Arm 1 data, as the most commonly requested data. Further details about Phase 2, Arm 2 and Phase 3 data are available here: https://cam-can.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/materials/.

Phase 1 data (Home Interview)

Home Interview

The Home Interview dataset contains data from approximately 2700 participants from Phase I of the camcan study. This includes a range of interview and self-completion questionnaires designed to collect lifestyle variables, demographic data, physical and social activity etc. A comprehensive searchable list is provided if data are requested. The lists are divided into three categories: Home Interview (homeint_ prefix), Electronic Personal Assessment Questionnaire (epaq_ prefix) and Additional derived Scores (additional_ prefix).

Phase 2 (Arm 1) Imaging Data

Name	N (Raw) Data
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data (conforming to BIDS standard)
Structural Data
T1	653
T2	653
Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI)	642
Magnetisation Transfer Imaging (MTI)	623
Functional Data
Resting State	652
Movie Watching	649
Sensorimotor	651
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) (conforming to BIDS standard)
Resting State	647
Sensorimotor	647
Sensory (passive) task	639

Phase 2 (Arm 1) Imaging Parameters

For a complete set of sequence parameters, download the PDF

T1	3D MPRAGE, TR=2250ms, TE=2.99ms, TI=900ms; FA=9 deg; FOV=256x240x192mm; 1mm isotropic; GRAPPA=2; TA=4mins 32s
T2	3D SPACE, TR=2800ms, TE=408ms, TI=900ms; FOV=256x256x192mm; 1mm isotropic; GRAPPA=2; TA=4mins 30s
Fieldmaps	PE-GRE, TR=400ms, TE=5.19ms/7.65ms, 1 Magnitude and 1 Phase volume, 32 slices 3.7mm thick, 0.74mm gap, FA=60deg, FOV= 192 × 192mm, 3 × 3 × 4.44, TA=53s
DWI	2D twice-refocused SE EPI, TR=9100ms, TE=104ms, TI=900ms; FOV=192x192mm; 66 axial slices, 2mm isotropic; B0=0,1000/2000s/mm2, 30 directions; TA=10mins 2s. Readout time 0.0684 (echo spacing=0.72ms, EPI factor=96)
MTI	2x3D, MT-prepared SPGR, TR =30ms/50ms, FA=12 deg; FOV=192×192 mm; 1.5 mm × 1.5 mm; bandwidth =190Hz/px; TA=2min, 36s/4mins, 19s (RF pulse offset=1950Hz, BW=375 Hz, FA=500deg, dur=9984ms)
fMRI (Rest + Sensorimotor)	T2* GE EPI, N=261 volumes of 32 axial slices 3.7mm thick, 0.74mm gap, TR=1970ms; TE=30ms, FA=78 deg; FOV =192 mm × 192 mm;3 × 3 x 4.44 mm, TA=8mins 40s
fMRI (Movie)	Multi-echo T2* GE EPI, N=193 volumes of 32 axial slices 3.7mm thick, 0.74mm gap, TR=2470ms; TE=[9,4, 21.2, 33, 45, 57]ms, FA=78 deg; FOV =192 mm × 192 mm;3 × 3 x 4.44 mm, TA=7:57. First TR corresponds to the first frame of the movie. Data can be provided in a single image in which 5 echoes weighted by estimated T2*, or as 5 separate images, one per TE
NOTE FOR ALL MRI DATA	In October 2011, after the first 97 CamCAN participants had been acquired, the 3T TRIO was ramped down after the gradient coil failed, and therefore B0 frequency and passive shimming configuration differed for the subsequent participants. The coil-type is available as a binary variable within the standard tabular data folder provided for all requests
MEG Raw (Rest + Sensorimotor + Sensory)	306-channel Elekta Neuromag Vectorview (102 magnetometers and 204 planar gradiometers), 1kHz sampling, 0.03-330 Hz, 4 HPI coils, bipolar VEOG, HEOG, ECG NOTE: The first 30-40s of each MEG run was without continuous Head Position Indicator (cHPI) coils switched on (this does not affect trial onsets, which always started after cHPI turned on, but does affect resting-state). Empty-room data are also available.

Phase 1 (Arm 1 and 2) Cognitive Data

Cognitive data collected in the Phase 1 home interview.

Dataset	N

RT choice	2290
RT simple	2358
Spot the Word (STW)	2575
Story Memory (adapted Wechsler Logical Memory)	2604

Phase 2 (Arm 1) Cognitive Data

Most of the cognitive (behavioural) datasets below are acquired outside of the scanner (except for MEG and MRI sensori-motor).

Dataset	N

Benton faces	657
Cardiovascular measures	587
Cattell	660
Emotional expression recognition	665
Emotional memory	330
Emotion regulation	316
Famous faces	660
Force matching	328
Hotel task	658
Motor learning	318
Picture priming	652
Proverbs	655
Synsem	660
TOT	656
VSTM colour	656
*Behavioural data from imaging sessions*
MRI Sensori-motor task	657
MEG Sensori-motor task (RTs)	655

Phase 1 Cognitive Descriptions

Story Memory	Adapted from Wechsler Memory Scale–Third Edition (WMS-III; Wechsler, 1997). After hearing a short story, participants were asked to say everything they could remember (“immediate recall”). After approximately 15 minutes, they were asked to remember story again (“delayed recall”). This was followed by “yes/no” recognition questions, indicating whether a series of statements were part of the original story (“story recognition”)
Reaction Time	‘Simple’ and ‘choice’ reaction time (RT) tasks were used to assess processing speed. Simple RT was based on the time to respond to a single visual stimulus, while choice RT was based on the time to respond to one of four stimuli.
Spot the Word (STW)	A word identification task to measure crystallised intelligence.

Phase 2 (Arm 1) Cognitive Descriptions

Emotional expression	View face and label emotion expressed (happy, sad, anger, fear, disgust, surprise) where faces are morphs along axes between emotional expression
Emotional memory	Study: View (positive, neutral, or negative) background image, then object image superimposed, and imagine a ‘story’ linking the two; Test (incidental): View and identify degraded image of (studied, new) object, then judge memory and confidence for visually intact image of same object, then recall valence and any details of background image from study phase.
Emotional reactivity and regulation	View (positive, neutral, negative) film clips under instructions to simply ‘watch’ or ‘reappraise’ (attempt to reduce emotional impact by reinterpreting its meaning; for some negative films only), then rate emotional impact (how negative, positive they felt during clip) and the degree to which they successfully reappraised.
Face recognition: familiar faces	View faces of famous people (and some unknown foils), judge whether each is familiar, and if so, what is known about the person (occupation, nationality, origin of fame, etc.), then attempt to provide person’s name.
Face recognition: unfamiliar faces	Given a target image of a face, identify same individual in an array of 6 face images (with possible changes in head orientation and lighting between target and same face in the test array).
Fluid intelligence	Complete nonverbal puzzles involving series completion, classification, matrices, and conditions.
Force matching	Match mechanical force applied to left index finger by using right index finger either directly, pressing a lever which transmits force to left index finger, or indirectly, by moving a slider which adjusts the force transmitted to the left index finger.
Hotel task	Perform tasks in role of hotel manager: write customer bills, sort money, proofread advert, sort playing cards, alphabetise list of names. Total time must be allocated equally between tasks; there is not enough time to complete any one task.
Motor learning	Time-pressured movement of a cursor to a target by moving an (occluded) stylus under veridical, perturbed (30°), and reset (veridical again) mappings between visual and real space.
Picture-picture priming	Name the pictured object presented alone (baseline), then when preceded by a prime object that is phonologically related (one, two initial phonemes), semantically related (low, high relatedness), or unrelated.
Proverb comprehension	Read and interpret three English proverbs.
Sentence comprehension	Listen to and judge grammatical acceptability of partial sentences, beginning with an (ambiguous, unambiguous) sentence stem (e.g., “Tom noticed that landing planes…”) followed by a disambiguating continuation word (e.g., “are”) in a different voice. Ambiguity is either semantic or syntactic, with empirically determined dominant and subordinate interpretations.
Tip-of-tongue task	View faces of famous people (actors, musicians, politicians, etc.) and respond with the person’s name, or “don’t know” if they do not know the person’s name (even if familiar), or “TOT” if they know the person’s name but are (temporarily) unable to retrieve it.
Visual short-term memory	View (1–4) coloured discs briefly presented on a computer screen, then after a delay, attempt to remember the colour of the disc that was at a cued location, with response indicated by selecting the colour on a colour wheel (touchscreen input).
Functional Data
Resting state	Participants are asked to lie still and rest with their eyes closed and remain awake.
Sensori-motor task (MEG+fMRI)	Audio-visual stimuli (bilateral sine gratings and concurrent audio tone). Participants were asked to respond each time a stimulus was presented. RTs extractable from BIDS events file. MEG also contained a passive version, where auditory and visual stimuli presented separately, and no response required.
Movie (fMRI)	Participants simply told to enjoy movie.

Phase 2 (Arm 1) Physiological Measures

Cardiovascular measures (diastolic and systolic blood pressure), height, and weight were taken during the scanning session. Three BP measures per participant are provided.

For more information on imaging and behavioural datasets including references and key variables, please see Shafto et al. (2014).

More details about Phase 2 (Arm 2) and Phase 3 are available during the data requesting procedure.

References:

Shafto, M.A., Tyler, L.K., Dixon, M., Taylor, J.R., Rowe, J.B., Cusack, R., Calder, A.J., Marslen-Wilson, W.D., Duncan, J., Dalgleish, T., Henson, R.N., Brayne, C., Cam-CAN, & Matthews, F.E. (2014). The Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) study protocol: a cross-sectional, lifespan, multidisciplinary examination of healthy cognitive ageing. BMC Neurology, 14(204). doi:10.1186/s12883-014-0204-1. [Cam-CAN Author list 10]

Project Terms and Conditions (click to expand)

I request access to data collected by the Cambridge Centre for Ageing Neuroscience (CamCAN) for the purpose of scientific investigation or the planning of clinical research studies and agree to the following terms:

I will receive access to de-identified data and will not attempt to establish the identity of, or attempt to contact, any of the CamCAN participants.
I will not further disclose these data beyond the uses outlined in this agreement.
I will use the data only for the purposes of non-commercial, ethical research in this application and to seek the approval of CamCAN (via the CamCAN Administrator) for any other proposed use.
I will require anyone on my team who utilizes these data, or anyone with whom I share these data, to comply with this data use agreement. Note, for this reason, students should ask their supervisors to apply on their behalf.
I will not copy data to external storage locations (such as dropbox, google drive or external harddrives) and understand data must remain on my institution’s server.
I will respond promptly and accurately to requests to update this information.
I will comply with any rules and regulations imposed by my institution and its institutional review board in requesting these data.
I understand that it is my responsibility to check data for errors, and that CamCAN is not responsible for the consequences of unreported errors in the data. I also agree to make any such errors known to CamCAN as soon as possible.
I understand that CamCAN cannot guarantee exclusive use of these data or police potential overlaps of interest with other researchers.
I agree to make any publications that arise from use of CamCAN data open-access. Any derived data and processing scripts used to produce those derived data will also be made available on a suitable open-access data repository.
I will acknowledge the CamCAN project as a source of data and include language similar to the following: “Data collection and sharing for this project was provided by the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (CamCAN). CamCAN funding was provided by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant number BB/H008217/1), together with support from the UK Medical Research Council and University of Cambridge, UK.”
I will include language similar to the following in the methods section of my manuscripts in order to accurately acknowledge data gathering by the CamCAN investigators. Depending upon the length and focus of the article, it may be appropriate to include more or less than the example below. However, inclusion of some variation of the language shown below is mandatory. “Data used in this work were obtained from the CamCAN repository (https://cam-can.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/dataset/), based on the CamCAN study (Shafto et al., 2015). “Citation: Shafto, M.A., Tyler, L.K., Dixon, M., Taylor, J.R., Rowe, J.B., Cusack, R., Calder, A.J., Marslen-Wilson, W.D., Duncan, J., Dalgleish, T., Henson, R.N., Brayne, C., CamCAN, & Matthews, F.E. (2014). The Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (CamCAN) study protocol: a cross-sectional, lifespan, multidisciplinary examination of healthy cognitive ageing. BMC Neurology, 14(204). doi:10.1186/s12883-014-0204-1.

I understand that failure to abide by these guidelines will result in termination of my privileges to access CamCAN data. I understand that any details I enter on this website and any other communication I have with the CamCAN team will be handled according to our data use policy, and I agree for my data to be stored and used in this way