On Sept. 28, 2021, the University of Arizona has been awarded a five-year $60 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create and lead a Precision Aging Network that could transform the way we think about the aging brain.

The network will bring together researchers from across the country to better understand how and why people experience brain aging differently, with the ultimate goal of developing more effective treatments and interventions targeted to the individual.

Led by neuroscientist Carol Barnes, a UArizona Regents Professor of psychology, neurology and neuroscience and a national leader in brain aging research, the program was inspired by the field of precision medicine, which takes into account a person’s genetics, lifestyle, environment and other factors to customize care rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach. 

Researchers from the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, Baylor College of Medicine, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Miami and the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute, or TGen, an affiliate of City of Hope, will be part of the UArizona-led network. The program will embark on four national-scale research studies designed to better understand the neural mechanisms that account for optimal brain performance in older age and those that underlie age-related cognitive impairment and disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The Precision Aging Network will use an expanded version of the MindCrowd online portal to help recruit 350,000 study participants age 18 and older and gather information on their cognition, demographics, health and lifestyle variables.    Some of those individuals will then be invited to participate in more in-depth, in-person studies at one of four sites: UArizona in Tucson, Emory University in Atlanta, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.