Worldwide Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative.

The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) was launched in 2003 to speed drug development by validating imaging and blood/cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease clinical treatment trials. ADNI is a naturalistic (nontreatment) multisite longitudinal study. A true public-private partnership, the first phase of ADNI (ADNI 1) set a new standard for data sharing without embargo. In addition, it has been extended to 2017 by additional funding (North American-ADNI Grand Opportunities and ADNI 2) as well as multiple projects around the world, collectively known as Worldwide ADNI (WW-ADNI). The goal of WW-ADNI is to harmonize projects and results across different geographical sites and to encourage and harmonize data management and availability to investigators around the world. WW-ADNI projects are currently underway in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, and Argentina, with a nascent program in China and a possible future program in Brazil.