# Resilience and brain health of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic

> **NIH NIH R01** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $1,859,128

## Abstract

Abstract:
Exercise and mindfulness are believed to be effective stress reduction interventions, but research to date has
not been able to assess their benefits while individuals are coping with a major stressor in real time. The
COVID-19 pandemic is an unwanted natural experiment in the deleterious effects of stress – especially social
isolation (social disconnectedness and loneliness), a stressor particularly strongly associated with the
pandemic - on older Americans’ cognitive and emotional health and risk for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). This
project will elucidate whether exercise and mindfulness can mitigate the effects of pandemic stress on
cognitive function and emotional health in later life, including neurobiological measures of risk for AD.
We will leverage a unique resource: the NIH-funded trial, “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Exercise
for Age-Related Cognitive Decline” (MEDEX). By leveraging MEDEX and following these participants, who
continue to attend monthly booster sessions of their randomized condition remotely during the pandemic, we
will have repeated sets of clinical, cognitive, molecular, and neuroimaging measures covering 7.5 years during
the pre-, during-, and post-pandemic period. We can examine intervention effects, as well as individual factors
such as resilience, on long-term outcomes. Among other innovative aspects of the project, we will analyze
effects on two novel peripheral biomarkers: Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype (SASP), which
measures mechanisms of biological aging, and plasma amyloid Aβ42 and Aβ40, which measure AD risk.
In the proposed project, (1) during the pandemic, we will use novel methods such as Ecological Momentary
Assessment (EMA) to characterize social isolation both objectively (e.g., number of social contacts) and
subjectively (e.g., loneliness), and its biological mechanisms on aging (such as elevations in SASP and plasma
amyloid); (2) post-pandemic, we will assess downstream effects on cognitive function, emotional well-being,
and brain health, including AD risk, using neuropsychological assessments, EMA, and neuroimaging.
Outcomes include (Aim 1) changes in cognitive performance and emotional well-being, and decline in
emotional well-being measured by positive and negative affect and sleep quality; increases in biological aging
and decreasing AΒ42/40 ratio in the post-pandemic phase, indicating higher risk of AD; atrophy in hippocampal
and prefrontal volume (structural MRI) and reduced global functional connectivity (resting-state fMRI).
Modifiers of these effects (Aim 2) include exercise and mindfulness; psychological resilience; COVID-19
exposure; medical morbidities; and APOE genotype. Mechanisms of cognitive, emotional, and brain health
changes (Aim 3) include amyloid (Aβ40 and Aβ42), SASP, DNA methylation, and cortisol during the pandemic.
This project will advance our knowledge of the impact of social isolation and other stressors on older adults,
including mechanisms by ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10317565
- **Project number:** 1R01AG072694-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Breno Satler Diniz
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $1,859,128
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-08-15 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10317565

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10317565, Resilience and brain health of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic (1R01AG072694-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10317565. Licensed CC0.

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