HABS
Harvard Aging Brain Study (HABS) public dataset
Longitudinal study at Massachusetts General Hospital of 358 older adults who were cognitively normal at entry, with 3 T MRI (T1w, FLAIR, SWI, DTI, resting-state fMRI), PiB, flortaucipir and FDG PET and up to 11 years of clinical and cognitive follow-up.
Overview
The Harvard Aging Brain Study (HABS) is an NIA-funded longitudinal cohort at Massachusetts General Hospital that follows older adults who were cognitively normal at entry, to study the earliest brain changes of preclinical Alzheimer's disease. The study shares its data with outside researchers; release 3 (March 2025) is hosted on Synapse.
Composition
Release 3 covers 358 participants aged 50 to 90 at baseline (216 women, 142 men), followed for up to 11 years. By the last visit, 300 were still cognitively normal, 43 had mild cognitive impairment and 15 had dementia. Spreadsheets hold demographics, APOE status, clinical ratings (CDR, MMSE, GDS, Hachinski), neuropsychological tests, the PACC composite, plasma pTau217 and FreeSurfer and PET regional measures.
Release 3 started with ADNI-style T1w MPRAGE images and mean PiB and flortaucipir PET images. The Synapse roadmap lists T2w, FLAIR, FDG, resting-state fMRI, DTI and SWI images as later additions. The scan counts in the statistics come from release 2.0 (2020), which shared raw NIfTI images from the baseline, 3-year and 5-year visits, for example 508 SWI scans of 289 participants.
Acquisition
All MRI was acquired on two matched Siemens 3 T TIM Trio scanners at the Martinos Center: MEMPRAGE with matched T2w SPACE, ADNI-style MPRAGE, 3D FLAIR, SWI, 30-direction DTI and resting-state BOLD. SWI was collected for microbleed counts and clinical reads, and was dropped from the 5-year visit onward. PET was done on a Siemens ECAT HR+ with dynamic PiB (0 to 60 min), FDG and flortaucipir. Images are converted to NIfTI. Release 3 refaces T1w and PET images with mri_reface, and all dates are shifted by a per-subject offset.
Annotations
No manual image labels are shared. Derived data are FreeSurfer 6 regional measures and PET regional SUVR and DVR values from PETSurfer.
Known limitations
- Single site, one scanner model, and a mostly white cohort (80% in release 3).
- Imaging is collected only at selected visits, so the set of scans per participant varies.
- The per-sequence image counts describe release 2.0. Counts for release 3 are not published.
- Whether microbleed counts or SWI reads are part of the shared spreadsheets is not documented.
Cohort
Aggregate numbers from the sources below. Bars are relative to the 358 subjects.
Sex
- Female 216 60%
- Male 142 40%
Age
mean 71.5± 7.94 · range 50 to 90No age bins reported.
Contrast / sequence
subjects, values can overlap
- Susceptibility-weighted 289 81%
- FLAIR 289 81%
- BOLD fMRI 289 81%
- Diffusion-weighted 287 80%
PET tracer
subjects
- [11C]PiB 288 80%
- [18F]FDG 285 80%
- [18F]flortaucipir 195 54%
Condition
subjects, values can overlap
- Healthy control 300 84%
- Mild cognitive impairment 43 12%
- Dementia 15 4%
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
A research proposal is reviewed and approved
Harvard Aging Brain Study (HABS) Data Use Agreement
Click-through agreement on Synapse after a reviewed request with an intended data use statement. Data may only be used for the stated study, stay inside the recipient's institution and must be destroyed at the end. The data may not be sold or commercialized, publications must acknowledge and cite HABS and be reported to the HABS data committee, and use from listed countries of concern is barred.
What you can do
- Conditional
- Conditional
- Not stated
- Conditional
What you can share
- No
- Not stated
- Conditional
What you must do
- Yes
- Share alike No
- Yes
- Conditional
- Conditional
- Release code No
- No
- Yes
Limits
- Yes
- Yes
Commercial license: Not stated
Citation
Dagley A, LaPoint M, Huijbers W, Hedden T, McLaren DG, Chatwal JP, Papp KV, Amariglio RE, Blacker D, Rentz DM, Johnson KA, Sperling RA, Schultz AP. Harvard Aging Brain Study: Dataset and accessibility. NeuroImage 144(Pt B):255-258 (2017). doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.03.069
All numbers
Every number on this page, as stored in stats.csv, with its source.
| Measure | Breakdown | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects | total participants in public release v3 | 358 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Subjects | sex=female | 216 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Subjects | sex=male | 142 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Subjects | condition=healthy cognitively normal at the last visit; all participants were cognitively normal at enrolment | 300 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Subjects | condition=mci diagnosis at the last visit | 43 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Subjects | condition=dementia diagnosis at the last visit | 15 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Mean age | total age at enrolment | 71.5 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Age SD | total age at enrolment | 7.9 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants table |
| Minimum age | total age at baseline | 50 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants |
| Maximum age | total age at baseline | 90 | habs-synapse-data-details Participants |
| Subjects | contrast=swi release 2.0 (visits HAB_1.0 and HAB_4.0); SWI was dropped from HAB_6.0 | 289 | habs-release-2-notes p. 2, SWI |
| Scans | contrast=swi release 2.0 observations | 508 | habs-release-2-notes p. 2, SWI |
| Subjects | contrast=FLAIR release 2.0 | 289 | habs-release-2-notes p. 3, FLAIR |
| Scans | contrast=FLAIR release 2.0 observations | 706 | habs-release-2-notes p. 3, FLAIR |
| Subjects | contrast=dwi release 2.0; 30-direction DTI | 287 | habs-release-2-notes p. 3, DTI |
| Scans | contrast=dwi release 2.0 observations | 499 | habs-release-2-notes p. 3, DTI |
| Subjects | contrast=bold release 2.0 | 289 | habs-release-2-notes p. 3, Resting State fMRI |
| Scans | contrast=bold release 2.0 observations (resting-state runs) | 1,760 | habs-release-2-notes p. 3, Resting State fMRI |
| Scans | contrast=T1w release 2.0; sum of 513 MEMPRAGE and 696 ADNI-style MPRAGE observations, two separate sequences | 1,209 | habs-release-2-notes p. 2, T1 and T2 space imaging |
| Subjects | tracer=fdg release 2.0 | 285 | habs-release-2-notes p. 4, FDG |
| Scans | tracer=fdg release 2.0 observations | 494 | habs-release-2-notes p. 4, FDG |
| Subjects | tracer=pib release 2.0 | 288 | habs-release-2-notes p. 4, PiB |
| Scans | tracer=pib release 2.0 observations | 696 | habs-release-2-notes p. 4, PiB |
| Subjects | tracer=flortaucipir release 2.0 | 195 | habs-release-2-notes p. 5, FTP |
| Scans | tracer=flortaucipir release 2.0 observations | 343 | habs-release-2-notes p. 5, FTP |
Sources
The keys used in the table above.
- habs-synapse-data-details HABS public dataset on Synapse, Data Details page (release v3) website
- habs-release-2-notes HABS public data release, readme for raw neuroimaging data, release 2.0 (2020-07-11) website