Program Director/Principal Investigator (Last, First, Middle): Park, DoniSO C.PROJECT SUMMARY (See instmctions):The present proposal is a plan to continue and even expand the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study (DLBS) for fiveadditional years. The DLBS is possibly the largest and most complete cross-sectional lifespan study thatcurrently exists that integrates structuraland functional brain imaging measures, as well as amyloid imagingto understand and predict cognitive function. At the end of the first five year period, the final sample In thestudy Includes 425 adults from age 20 to 90, vvith a minimum of 50 subjects in each age decade. Becausethe cognitive neuroscience of aging is still a very young science, there are very few studies of longitudinalchange in neural function. In fact, most large studies of brain and behavior that have a longitudinalcomponent include only structural imaging, and many of these studies were not designed as brain/behaviorstudies. The Dallas Lifespan Brain Study was designed from its inception to be a longitudinal study ofneurocognitive function and the present proposal is focused on adding a four year follow-up testing intervalto the study. This will allow us to assess how neural structure and function change after a four-year intervalat each decade of the life-span, and whether neural signatures associated with high or low performance atinitial testing are predictive of negative trajectory of change in cognition and neural structure and function. Atpresent, subjects admitted to the DLBS are highly screened and selected. The older subjects. In particular,must be 'optimally aging' to meet the screening criteria. We propose to add an additional 180 subjects tothe original sample who are 'typically aging' and who have an exclusion factor or are of lower education thanthe present DLBS sample. The contrast of subjects who are perhaps more representative of the agingpopulation with highly selected subjects will provide one of the first pictures of tlie neurocognitive health ofthese two different populations.
This project provides fundamental information about when in the lifespan the onset of cognitive dysfunctionand neuropathology occurs. The findings from this project could play a key role in Identifying high-riskindividuals relatively early in life for cognitive interventions and Alzheirner's Disease prevention as treatmentsbecome available.
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