# Social security: The influence of social relationships on cognitive, affective, and neural aging

> **NIH NIH R56** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2022 · $776,416

## Abstract

Project Summary
Although accumulating evidence in humans points to improvements in emotional life with age, even in the context
of physical and cognitive health challenges, the mechanisms that support those improvements are largely
unknown. One possibility is that aspects of the social environment and social relationships guard against
deleterious aging effects and thus promote wellbeing. Understanding the interplay between social environment
and cognitive, affective, and neurobehavioral health outcomes across the lifespan is critical for developing
effective interventions for people who suffer from the deleterious effects of aging, including depression and
loneliness. Nevertheless, it is not ethical to manipulate humans’ social relationships in order to test causal
hypotheses. To address this mechanistic question, we capitalize on a robust animal model of human social,
cognitive, affective, and neurobehavioral aging – the rhesus monkey – in order evaluate whether robust social
environments and high-quality relationships promote and protect healthy affective, cognitive, and
neurobehavioral aging while restrictions of the social environment compromise it. Additionally, we evaluate
whether social interventions, namely increasing access to high quality social partners, may improve cognitive,
affective, and neurobehavioral outcomes once they have been compromised by aging processes. We will restrict
and then rejuvenate the social environment in both young and aged monkeys, and measure neurobehavioral
function (cognition, affect, and neuroimaging measures of brain structure and function) concurrently with these
manipulations. In this way, this program of work represents a critical first step in determining the mechanistic
impact of social environment on neurobehavioral aging in addition to evaluating a potential intervention that could
benefit individuals who have experienced unhealthy aging.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10493358
- **Project number:** 5R56AG071486-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Mark G Baxter
- **Activity code:** R56 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $776,416
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-30 → 2024-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10493358

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10493358, Social security: The influence of social relationships on cognitive, affective, and neural aging (5R56AG071486-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10493358. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*