The National Institutes of Health has awarded UC Davis Health $15.85 million to fund the next phase of one of the largest studies of brain aging in Hispanic-Latino communities in the United States. The money will go toward building what researchers describe as the most comprehensive long-term dataset on Hispanic and Latino brain aging assembled to date.
The gap the study aims to fill is a stark one. Latinos are among the fastest growing demographic groups in the country and carry a higher burden of heart and vascular disease, and they are more likely than other groups to develop mild cognitive impairment or dementia. Despite that, they remain underrepresented in aging and dementia research, which means much of what is known about how the brain changes with age rests on data drawn from populations that do not reflect them.
Charles DeCarli, distinguished professor of neurology at UC Davis and co-director of the university's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, is the study's principal investigator. He said the goal is to pinpoint the factors that matter most for healthy cognitive aging and, in doing so, reduce the dementia burden carried by millions of families. The new phase, he said, will give researchers an unprecedented view of how the brain changes over time in Latino communities.
Long-term data of this kind is what allows scientists to separate risk factors that genuinely drive cognitive decline from those that merely travel alongside it. Given the elevated cardiovascular risk documented in these communities, findings from the project could sharpen understanding of how vascular health and brain health intersect - a question with implications well beyond the group being studied.