Project Details
Description
Although the clinical manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) typically emerge in
late life, early life/childhood risk factors play a role in their etiology. Because childhood is a period of brain
plasticity and sensitivity to enduring environmental influences, early socio-economic adversities can affect
brain development and maturation, fostering adverse cognitive changes later in life. Persisting poverty over the
life course may exacerbate these effects. Furthermore, genomic research in ADRDs does not fully consider the
social determinants of health that are robust causes of racial and ethnic ADRDs disparities. This research gap
is particularly important for Hispanics, who experience widespread socio-economic adversities, and are at high
risk of ADRD despite modest effect of ApoE4 on ADRD risk. The Study of Latinos Investigation of
Neurocognitive Aging (SOL INCA) and its MRI neuroimaging study are ideally suited to elucidating health
effects of life course socio-economic conditions given the large and richly characterized cohort with repeated
neurocognitive, vascular, and socio-cultural assessments. We will leverage these unparalleled resources to
understand how early and sustained adverse socioeconomic conditions shape risk of ADRD and the biological
mechanisms that may explain these effects. We posit that early socio-economic adversity will be related to
lower gray matter and hippocampal volumes, as a result of poverty-related exposures during key periods of
brain development and maturation. Later, these early adversities can foster steeper aging-related trajectories
of cognitive decline. Persisting adversities over the life course may also result in greater white matter
hyperintensity (WMH), due to poor cardiometabolic control arising from social determinants common in
disadvantaged populations. Longitudinal DNA methylation (DNAm) markers will provide novel insights about
the biological mechanisms linking early and sustained socio-economic adversities and indicators of ADRD risk.
ADRD-related biomarkers (MRI, plasma Amyloid, Tau and Neurodegeneration [ATN] and DNAm) will inform
whether the pathways linking socio-economic adversity are related to neurodegeneration, vascular injury, and
accelerated aging. The study will directly address NIA research priorities related to understanding the
pathways by which socio-economic, socio-cultural and behavioral factors affect neurocognitive aging.
Status | Active |
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Effective start/end date | 8/15/22 → 7/31/25 |
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