(1) Background: People with disabilities may benefit from an assistance dog (AD). Despite regulations that prohibit the denial of ADs to public places, this still occurs on a regular basis. The main argument for denial of access is that dogs compromise hygiene with their presence, which could cause a health hazard. Meanwhile, people are allowed to walk into and out of public places freely. (2) Objective: As a pilot study, to investigate the number of Enterobacteriaceae and the presence of Clostridium difficile bacteria on the paws of ADs and pet dogs (PDs) as well as the shoe soles of their users and owners. With the results, an assessment can be made as to whether measures are required to reduce environmental contamination (e.g., in hospitals). (3) Methods: In total, 25 ADs, 25 PDs, and their 50 users/owners participated in the study. Each participant walked their dog for 15–30 min prior to the sampling of the front paws. Each PD owner or AD user filled out a general questionnaire about the care of their dogs, and AD users were asked to fill out an additional questionnaire on their experiences regarding the admittance of their ADs to public places (in particular, hospitals). Dutch hospitals were questioned on their protocols regarding the admittance of ADs and their visitor numbers, including the percentage of AD users, to put these numbers into perspective. (4) Results: Dog paws were more often negative for Enterobacteriaceae compared to shoe soles (72% and 42%, respectively) and also had significantly lower bacterial counts (mean of 3.54log10 and 5.03log10 colony-forming units (CFUs), respectively; p < 0.05). This was most distinct in the comparison between PDs and their owners (3.75log10 and 5.25log10 CFUs; p < 0.05); the numbers were similar between ADs and their users (3.09log10 and 4.58log10 CFUs; p = 0.2). C. difficile was found on one (4%) AD user’s shoe soles. Moreover, 81% of AD users had been denied access with their current AD once or several times, the main reason being hygiene. The results of the visibly and invisibly disabled were significantly different. The number of AD users as opposed to the total number of hospital visitors was 0.03% in one hospital and is estimated to be 0.02% in the Netherlands. (5) Conclusions: The general hygiene of dogs’ paws is far better than that of shoe soles, mostly demonstrated by the better general hygiene of PD paws compared with their owners’ shoe soles; ADs and their users had comparable levels of general hygiene. In addition, the number of AD users amongst the total number of hospital visitors in the Netherlands is very limited. Thus, hygiene measures to reduce any contamination due to dog paws do not seem necessary.

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Background Neuroimaging biomarkers in large‐scale multimodal studies have proven effective for early diagnosis. Image‐derived phenotypes (IDPs) are summary features derived from modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We provide an overview of the IDPs computed from the European Prevention of Alzheimer Dementia (EPAD) cohort study, a multi‐center European study including multimodal brain MRI. Method Baseline data from the first 1500 participants of the EPAD LCS were included. The imaging protocol consists of core (3D‐T1w, 3D‐FLAIR, 2D‐T2w, 2D‐T2*), and advanced (resting‐state fMRI, SWI, diffusion MRI, and ASL) sequences. 3D‐T1w IDPs consisted of regional volumes derived from FreeSurfer v6.0 and the Learn Embeddings for Atlas Propagation (LEAP) segmentation pipelines and 3D‐FLAIR IDPs were white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volumes measured by Bayesian Model Selection (BaMoS). Mean functional connectivity of rs‐fMRI networks was extracted with FSL MELODIC and dual‐regression analyses. For diffusion‐weighted imaging, we used FSL TBSS to quantify 48 regional fractional anisotropy (FA) values according to the JHU atlas of white matter tracts. ExploreASL was used to calculate mean Cerebral blood flow (CBF) and spatial coefficient‐of‐variation (sCoV) from ASL images. To evaluate the biological relevance of IDPs, we assessed their relationship with non‐imaging phenotypes. Result A total of 358 core and 119 advanced IDPs were derived. GM volume was inversely correlated with age, with stronger effects in medio‐temporal areas (Figure 1). Regional WMH volumetrics showed mostly frontal and parietal WM lesions that were associated with aging (Figure 2). Heterogeneous changes in within‐network functional connectivity were observed with older age, with mild differences between CDR 0 and 0.5 contrasts, mostly related to the default‐mode and frontoparietal networks (Figure 3). Age was also associated inversely with skeletonised FA values. Stronger reductions appeared in amyloid positive participants (Figure 4). Conclusion We show the relevance of IDPs from the EPAD neuroimaging dataset. The observed relationships with non‐imaging phenotypes confirm their biological relevance and are in agreement with previous studies. The proposed IDP framework may constitute a valuable resource for researchers using EPAD data, promoting reproducibility of results and easily adaptable for other studies and cohorts.