NIH Awards $13.8 Million to Conduct Studies on Pre-Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded two five-year grants worth a cumulative $13.8 million to Professor Joe Verghese at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System, to study pre-dementia and Alzheimer's disease, reports News-Medical . A $7.6 million grant will fund a study of motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR) in 11,000 older adults across six countries. The second grant of $6.2 million will let researchers assess a non-invasive brain stimulation method designed to relieve symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and improve brain function. "Our ultimate goal is to develop treatments that can prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease," Verghese said. In identifying and characterizing MCR, a condition in which older adults have an abnormally slow gait and cognitive complaints, he found it affects nearly one in 10 older adults, and those diagnosed were twice as likely as other older adults to develop dementia within 12 years. The first NIH grant will allow investigators to explore MCR's biological causes and identify biomarkers, establish a consortium of eight ongoing studies of aging, evaluate biological and genetic data from participants, and monitor structural and functional brain changes over time. The second grant will investigate at-home use of transcranial direct current stimulation to determine how it improves cognitive performance and symptoms in 100 patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease.