# Population Neuroscience of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease (PNA)

> **NIH NIH T32** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2021 · $326,411

## Abstract

Training Grant in Population Neuroscience of Aging & Alzheimer’s Disease (PNA)
 The objective of this new pre- and post-doctoral training program is to train highly talented individuals to pursue
successful independent research in the etiology of Alzheimer’s Disease and other age-related dementia (ADRD). Eligible
applicants are PhD graduates or candidates in Epidemiology, Neuroscience, Information Science, Biostatistics,
Biomedical informatics and MD/DO graduates with training in Neurology, Psychiatry, Geriatric medicine, and related
disciplines. We request support for 3 pre-doctoral and 2 post-doctoral positions annually, with a period of training of up to
3 years for post-docs and 4 years for pre-docs (up to 5 in some cases).
 The field of brain aging has profoundly changed because of the collision of two phenomena: worldwide increase of
our aging population, and rapid technological advancements in health measurements in general and in brain science in
particular. Our successes in extending lifespan, with marginal improvements in healthspan, have not only increased the
number of adults reaching very old ages, but they have also increased the heterogeneity of age-related neurocognitive
phenotypes. For these “new” older adults, there is a very high burden of chronic conditions affecting the central nervous
system either directly (e.g. stroke) or indirectly (heart conditions, diabetes). Cumulative exposure to chronic conditions,
biological ageing, chronological aging and possibly to other life-long environmental factors, interact with each other in
very complex ways and are all strong drivers of increased risks of developing dementia. While it is reasonable to expect
brain integrity to decline and dementia rates to increase over time, we cannot assume that chronological years and years
spent with a disease would have linearly additive effects on brain integrity.
 Understanding these complex pathways is fundamentally important to conduct rigorous etiological research into
causes and determinants of brain degeneration and dementia. Unfortunately, training and research in the field to date have
focused on dementia as an individual condition, and have mostly considered “older age” as an homogenous population,
while relegating multiple chronic conditions and other health issues as “collateral problems”, or as completely separate
problems. However, it is clear that to understand these complex issues and improve the brain health of the growing
population of elderly living with chronic diseases for a long time, it is necessary to have expertise in diseases of both the
brain/central nervous system and also other organ systems. We are also living through a time of great technological
advances in non-invasive and automated methods to measure brain abnormalities, the application of which is providing
ever more precise phenotypes but also very large and complex datasets. Such data require careful sampling designs and
analytical approaches infused with an under...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10176317
- **Project number:** 5T32AG055381-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** MARY GANGULI
- **Activity code:** T32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $326,411
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-05-01 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10176317

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10176317, Population Neuroscience of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease (PNA) (5T32AG055381-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10176317. Licensed CC0.

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