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Open Imaging Index
MRI Brain

cVEDA

Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalizing Disorders and Addictions (c-VEDA)

Indian accelerated longitudinal cohort of 9,010 children, adolescents and young adults aged 6 to 23 from 7 sites, with 3T MRI (T1w, T2w, FLAIR, diffusion, resting-state fMRI) in a subsample of 1,278, plus genomics, toxicology and psychiatric assessments, shared on approved proposals.

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Overview

c-VEDA is a multi-site cohort in India that follows children, adolescents and young adults to study how environmental exposures and genes shape brain development and the risk of externalizing disorders, substance misuse and other mental health problems. It is run jointly by NIMHANS in Bengaluru and King's College London, funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research and the UK Medical Research Council, and its protocols were aligned with IMAGEN. The dataset is released in numbered versions with DOIs; 1.5 (June 2021) is the latest listed.

Composition

Baseline assessments of 9,010 participants took place between November 2016 and May 2019 at seven recruitment centres in Chandigarh, Imphal, Kolkata, Rishi Valley, Mysuru and two in Bengaluru. Participants fall into three age bands: 6 to 11, 12 to 17 and 18 to 23 years. The design is an accelerated cohort with planned missingness: each participant is randomised to one follow-up, either one or two years after baseline. A subsample of 1,278 underwent MRI. Besides imaging, the release holds questionnaires on environment, adversity, temperament, parenting and substance use, psychiatric interviews (MINI), neuropsychological tasks, anthropometry, genotypes and toxicology from blood and urine.

Acquisition

Six of the seven sites contributed MRI participants, scanned at four centres on five 3T systems (Siemens Verio, Trio and Skyra; Philips Ingenia). The protocol, matched to IMAGEN, has a 3D T1w MPRAGE, resting-state fMRI, a B0 map where the scanner offers one, diffusion with a reversed phase-encoding acquisition, 2D FLAIR and 2D T2w. Neuroimaging participants were invited for a repeat scan at follow-up. Phantom scans, regular scans of healthy volunteers and an automated check after each scan were used for quality control.

Known limitations

  • Recruitment used convenience sampling in schools, colleges, communities and clinics, so the cohort does not represent the Indian population.
  • MRI consent was lower in the youngest age band, and follow-up rates in the imaging subsample were low, especially among younger children.
  • The release notes list participant identifiers that appear in the questionnaire files but not in the recruitment files, and the reverse.
  • The original project domain cveda.org no longer belongs to the consortium; the website moved to cveda-project.org.

Cohort

Aggregate numbers from the sources below. Bars are relative to the 9,010 subjects.

Sex

  • Female 4,699 52%
  • Male 4,300 48%

Age

mean 14.55± 4.61 · range 5.32 to 24.91

No age bins reported.

Modality

subjects

  • MRI 1,278 14%

Field strength

subjects

  • 3 T 1,278 14%

Country

subjects

  • India 9,010 100%

License and access

Our reading of the license, not legal advice. Before you use the data, read the original license and confirm that your use is allowed. We take no responsibility for how you use a dataset. Full disclaimer

Access
Application

A research proposal is reviewed and approved

Access page

cVEDA Data Sharing and Publication Guidelines

Researchers outside the consortium send a one-publication project proposal, naming a consortium liaison and the data requested, to the cVEDA Project Executive Committee. Only the people named in an approved proposal get access. Manuscripts must include named consortium members as authors.

External researchers send a one-publication project proposal, naming a consortium liaison, to the cVEDA Project Executive Committee. Approved applicants get an account on the c-VEDA server at NIMHANS and download the data via SFTP.

Original license text Version read: PDF created 22 July 2019, with the cVEDA Project Proposal Form Checked 2026-10-09

What you can do

  • Not stated
  • Not stated
  • Train ML models Not stated
  • Create derived data Not stated
  • Conditional

What you can share

  • Not stated
  • Share derived data Not stated
  • Share trained models Not stated

What you must do

  • Yes
  • Share alike No
  • No
  • Ethics approval No
  • No
  • Release code No
  • Return results No
  • Delete after use No

Limits

  • No
  • Location limits No

Citation

Sharma E, Vaidya N, Iyengar U, et al. Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalizing Disorders and Addictions (cVEDA): A developmental cohort study protocol. BMC Psychiatry 20, 2 (2020). doi:10.1186/s12888-019-2373-3. Dataset: c-VEDA dataset, doi:10.25720/veda-cmrh

All numbers

Every number on this page, as stored in stats.csv, with its source.

MeasureBreakdownValueSource
Subjectstotal
baseline participants assessed at 7 sites between November 2016 and May 2019; the cohort target was about 10,000 (sharma2020)
9,010zhang2020
Abstract
Subjectsmodality=MR
neuroimaging subsample recruited at 6 of the 7 sites; the protocol paper gives this as about 15% of the baseline sample
1,278zhang2020
Abstract
Subjectsfield_strength=3
scanned in 4 scanning centres on five 3T scanners
1,278zhang2020
Methods, Neuroimaging
Subjectscountry=IN 9,010zhang2020
Abstract
Subjectssex=female
of the 8999 participants summarised in Table 2
4,699zhang2020
Table 2
Subjectssex=male
of the 8999 participants summarised in Table 2
4,300zhang2020
Table 2
Mean agetotal
whole baseline cohort (N=8999); age missing for 5
14.6zhang2020
Table 2
Age SDtotal
whole baseline cohort (N=8999)
4.6zhang2020
Table 2
Minimum agetotal
whole baseline cohort (N=8999)
5.3zhang2020
Table 2
Maximum agetotal
whole baseline cohort (N=8999)
24.9zhang2020
Table 2

Sources

The keys used in the table above.