# Offspring Study of Mechanisms for Racial Disparities in Alzheimer's Disease

> **NIH NIH R01** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2021 · $3,429,627

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The overall aim of this study is to identify social and biological pathways of racial/ethnic disparities for incident
Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)/ Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders (ADRD) and cognitive decline that
emerge in middle age. We have recruited over 1,500 middle-aged offspring of participants in the Washington
Heights/Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP), and characterized them at baseline using measures of
neuropsychological and psychosocial function, lifecourse measures of social and environmental determinants of
health, stored blood samples, and brain structure with MRI. The Offspring study is unique among other cohorts,
with large numbers of Latinx and African American participants in middle age who are not a convenience sample
and are representative of their age and cultural groups, and whose parents are well-characterized with directly
observed clinical and biological data. Our prior work in the Offspring cohort found 1) lower memory and executive
function among middle aged people whose parents have MCI/AD, particularly among non-Latinx Whites
compared with non-Latinx Blacks and Latinx, 2) among Whites, parental cognition had a stronger impact on
offspring hippocampal volume, and among Blacks, parental cognition had a stronger impact on offspring WMH,
3) the negative impact of age on cognitive function and cortical thickness is disproportionately large among Black
and Latinx participants compared with Whites, 4) early life social factors such as parental SES promote cognitive
resilience to parental AD history, and 5) racial discrimination has a disproportionate negative impact on cognitive
test performance among Black and Spanish-speaking Latinx offspring relative to White offspring. Over the next
5 years, we propose to recruit additional offspring for a total sample of 2,500, obtain baseline MRI scans on an
additional 1,000 participants, obtain plasma biomarkers for AD risk and neurodegeneration on baseline blood
samples, and obtain two repeat assessments of cognitive, psychosocial, and medical function. Our overarching
hypothesis is that vascular and inflammatory pathways of transmission of parental AD risk play a greater role
among Black and Latinx older adults compared with Whites, and that socioeconomic status, educational quality,
and experience of discrimination will moderate the relationship between parental AD status and biomarkers of
AD on Offspring cognition. Specifically, the project will 1) examine the impact of biological markers of vascular
and inflammatory health, AD pathophysiology, neurodegeneration, biological aging, and genetic risk on cognitive
decline and incident impairment across race/ethnicity and sex/gender and 2) determine the lifecourse
educational, economic, and social moderators of parental AD risk and AD biomarkers on cognitive decline and
incident impairment across race/ethnicity and sex/gender.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10235834
- **Project number:** 2R01AG054070-02
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** ADAM M BRICKMAN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $3,429,627
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2016-09-01 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10235834

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10235834, Offspring Study of Mechanisms for Racial Disparities in Alzheimer's Disease (2R01AG054070-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10235834. Licensed CC0.

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