CORE C- DATA MANAGEMENT AND STATISTICS

This Data Management and Statistics Core (Core C) has played an essential role in the research program over its 25-year history. The Data Management and Statistics Core will continue to serve the overall research program and each of the component projects (Projects 1-4), along with the Animal Resource (Core B). The Core will provide expertise in statistics and experimental design to all projects under their respective research plans. This function of the Core is critical in the design and analysis of experiments that provide increasingly complex data and may benefit from analytical methods beyond the expertise of Project Leaders. Core C personnel with statistical expertise will participate in all research planning meetings (as described in detail in Core A). Continued consultation with investigators during the conduct of the research, data analysis, and preparation of publications will occur between this Core and the Projects. In these activities the Core maximizes communication across all project components to further the understanding of data to be analyzed, statistical procedures for those analyses, and appropriate interpretation of findings. This Core continues to develop and implement data management strategies to process and document all data collected in Core B (Animal Resource) and in the Projects. Through its data management activity the Core will continue to build an archive of data generated under this mechanism of support. Because all data are keyed to the age and cognitive status of AI and AU rats, and each subject has a unique identifier that links subject data across datasets, many opportunities exist for comparison of data in this animal model across studies and projects. These archives serve all members of the investigative group and constitute a highly valuable base of information in the area of neurocognitive aging. Specific personnel in Core C are tasked with the database resource development and data management. Large archives of data (e.g. behavioral data and health records from the Animal Resource, microarray datasets in basal and experimental conditions) are managed in an accessible format for internal use and for data sharing both within the Program Project and with outside investigators, the latter under the supervision of Core A.