Older Australian Twins Study Highlights from 2021 Eleven papers were published in scientific journals, including Behavior Genetics, Nature Genetics, The Journal of Gerontology: Series A, and Neurobiology of Ageing. In addition, one conference poster was presented online in June 2021 by Teresa Lee at the 51st Behavior Genetics Association Meeting. The first wave of data collection on OATS Online was completed in July 2021, with 300 participants completing all activities. A significant minority (45%) of current OATS participants preferred to complete paper questionnaires instead of online assessments. The change to online delivery changed the assessment tools used for neuropsychological testing. The new online neuropsychological tests brought new challenges for participants and the OATS team. Nevertheless, the second wave of OATS Online began in November 2022, incorporating participant feedback. The OATS Online website was launched in November 2021, with Australia-wide radio, print, and online media coverage. The media coverage brought new participants into OATS Online, with several twin pairs ready to begin participation during the second wave of OATS Online in January 2022. OATS continued our contribution to several consortia, including IGEMS (Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies), a collaboration between 18 twin studies worldwide, incorporating 76,000 twin participants. OATS contributed one IGEMS paper in 2021, authored by OATS team members Vibeke Catts, Teresa Lee, and international collaborators.
OATS also contributed three papers to the ENIGMA Network, authored by Karen Mather and Perminder Sachdev, and many ENIGMA collaborators. OATS gratefully acknowledges the contribution of Twins Research Australia who mediated the initial contact to many of our participants, as well as funding received from the National Health and Medical Research Council, and the contribution of our participants, project staff and many collaborators in Australia and beyond.
Dr Vibeke Catts Study Coordinator Staff Professor Perminder Sachdev Professor Henry Brodaty Professor Julian Trollor Dr Vibeke Catts
Dr Amanda Selwood Dr Teresa Lee Dr Karen Mather Dr Anbupalam Thalamuthu Juan Carlo San Jose
Students More than thirty students have used OATS data in their research projects. One of these, Xi (Sophie) Chen, graduated with her PhD in 2021. Ongoing PhD students include: Andrea Lammel Toyin Abdusalam Annabel Matison Abdullah Alqarni Dr Rebecca Koncz Chao Dong Annette Spooner In addition, three honours students, Andy Yu, Ewan Barnett, and Shizuka Hayashi, and one ILP student, Christabella Surono, completed their projects using OATS data. To find out more contact twins@unsw.edu.au
Study Participants Barbara Setterfield and Kathleen Byrne
Longitudinal Studies | 35
