I am the Scientific Project Manager for the SEA-AD Consortium. I am posting a community question received via email related to working with SEA-AD data:
I am writing to inquire about the donor metadata available on the Seattle Alzheimer’s Disease Brain Cell Atlas website. Specifically, I am interested in the pathological attributes provided in the downloadable Excel sheet, such as APOE genotype, cognitive status, and overall AD neuropathological change.
I am having difficulty determining which pathological attribute should be used to categorize patients as controls versus AD. Could you please provide guidance or additional information on this matter?
In the SEA-AD analyses, we are not treating the donors as binary - AD vs Control, but as a spectrum of disease (not case-control design). Even so, we want to provide as much clinical information as is available in the donor metadata table. In that table as well as in the online donor index, you can review the consensus clinical diagnosis column. Descriptions of the metadata can be found here and information on consensus clinical diagnosis can be found here.
Categorizing those with dementia vs. no dementia is more straightforward than AD vs. Control. That information can be found in the Cognitive Status column in the donor metadata table and online donor index.