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This FOA is soliciting research projects that would advance biomedical research on the role of peripheral proteostasis on brain structure and function during aging and in Alzheimer's disease, facilitating the identification of molecular and cellular markers of normal brain aging and brain aging during pathological conditions.

The purpose of this FOA is to solicit applications for the next 6-year cycle of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which is the leading longitudinal data resource on patterns of age-related changes in the health and well-being of adults age 50 and older in the U.S. The goals of the next cycle are to: 1) continue the current structure and design elements of the HRS while reducing respondent burden; 2) establish a repository of blood samples for future study; 3) enrich administrative linkages and collaborations with genetics consortia; 4) conduct follow-up dementia assessment using the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) to update data on the prevalence of dementia including Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD); 5) enhance harmonization with comparable surveys of population aging; and 6) augment data dissemination and user support. 

The purpose of the Aging Interventions Testing Program (ITP) is to test, under standardized conditions in multiple sites, potential intervention strategies which may decelerate the rate of aging in mammals. The rate of aging is to be measured by lifespan extension and/or improvements in health at later ages due to the intervention. The ITP has used life span as its primary outcome for an intervention, with limited studies on end-of-life pathologies and selected tests of health across the lifespan (health span). This FOA calls for renewal and expansion of the ITP with the following goals: 1. Continue to test compounds for effects on lifespan; 2. Increase analysis of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of compounds proposed for lifespan studies, including studies of optimal effective dose; 3. Increase histology and pathophysiology analyses at time-of-death; 4. Increase focused studies of health span on selected compounds; 5. Establish a data coordinating center.

This funding opportunity is for competitive grants to be awarded to support systematic testing and documentation of innovative and promising practices that enhance the quality, effectiveness, and proven outcomes of nutrition programs and services within the aging services network. Innovative and promising practice projects awarded through previous INNU announcements have focused on at least one of the following areas; Creating partnerships between Universities and/or other research organizations in collaboration with aging network organizations to develop or test innovative evidence based programs or practices for senior nutrition; Modernizing the congregate and/or home delivered meal program infrastructure, delivery mechanisms, and/or marketing and outreach that can be used by the national aging network to ensure that States are able to maximize the return on their investment in nutrition programs and expanding the reach of the OAA target populations; Enhancing partnerships with health care partners (e.g. oral health, behavioral health, alternative health, and etc.) to further demonstrate the network's value in solving local and national problems, and/or increasing business acumen opportunities and; Advancing the use of technology within the aging and nutrition network Successful awardees will be expected to focus on outcomes including, but not limited to, methods to improve collaboration with local health care entities, decrease health care costs for a specific population, and/or decrease the incidence of the need for institutionalization among older adults.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications to develop short-term tests that provide a comprehensive measure of resilience in animal models used in aging studies. Resilience is defined here as the ability of an organism to respond to physical challenges or stresses and return to homeostasis. Increased resilience is believed to correlate with longevity and a longer health-span, but appropriate methodology to test this comprehensibly in animal models is currently lacking. The purpose of this FOA is to develop appropriate tests to measure resilience to physical, molecular and cellular stresses, as a prelude to being able to predict, using a panel of standardized short-term tests in young or middle-aged animals, whether interventions might lead to improved future health outcomes and longevity.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications to develop short-term tests that provide a comprehensive measure of resilience in animal models used in aging studies. Resilience is defined here as the ability of an organism to respond to physical challenges or stresses and return to homeostasis. Increased resilience is believed to correlate with longevity and a longer health-span, but appropriate methodology to test this comprehensibly in animal models is currently lacking. The purpose of this FOA is to develop appropriate tests to measure resilience to physical, molecular and cellular stresses, as a prelude to being able to predict, using a panel of standardized short-term tests in young or middle-aged animals, whether interventions might lead to improved future health outcomes and longevity.

The overall goal of this funding announcement is to elicit applications for novel strategies to enhance referral, participation, and adherence in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) of older and vulnerable patients who are eligible for CR under current Medicare eligibility criteria. Specifically, NIA seeks clinical trials that address one or more specific age-related factors including patient-related issues, CR program goals and components, and CR program setting-related aspects. These three age-related issues represent distinct, but potentially interrelated, areas that are impacted by advancing age and are not currently addressed in traditional CR programs. Determination of the specific aspects of CR programs that may be better suited to medically complex and vulnerable older adults, such as eligibility, patient-centered goals and outcomes, and novel components and delivery systems may ultimately improve referral, enrollment, completion and overall benefit of this Medicare-supported resource. Successful modified programs should strive to improve function, independence and quality of life while reducing disability, future CV events, readmissions, morbidity and mortality.

As health advances allow people to live longer, healthy aging has become an urgent frontier for research. The burden of age-related cognitive impairment - whether from Alzheimer's disease, vascular dysfunction, or other causes - is growing exponentially. To accelerate collaborative brain-aging research, the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association are committing $43 million with additional partners to co-fund a new research initiative with the goal of shedding new light on how to better prevent, detect, and treat age-related cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer's disease.

This FOA invites applications from qualified institutions to create a Roybal Center Coordinating Center (CC), serving the needs of the Roybal Centers for Translational Research on Aging program as well as the Roybal Centers for Translational Research on Dementia Care Provider Support program. The Roybal Coordinating Center will serve as a hub for the Roybal Center grant program. Roybal Center programs conduct translational research in the behavioral and social sciences of aging, structured in accordance with the NIH Stage Model. Roybal Center program resources are intended for pilot and preliminary translational, multi-directional research at Stages 0 through IV of the behavioral intervention development pipeline with the goal of creating principle-driven interventions that improve the lives of mid-life and older people and the capacity of institutions to adapt to societal aging. The Roybal Coordinating Center will facilitate and coordinate trans-Roybal activities. The Center will work closely with the NIA Program Officer and, in coordination with all Roybal sites, will be responsive to requests generated by key Roybal site personnel, NIA, NIH, the scientific community, and the general public.

Studies have found that older adults who participate in what they see as meaningful activities, like volunteering in their community, reported feeling healthier and happier. Other studies have found that older adults who have a full social network and participate in many social activities tend to have less cognitive decline and a decreased risk of dementia than those who are not socially engaged do. The Administration on Aging is interested in increasing ACL and the Aging Network’s understanding of what constitutes good practice for promoting and supporting social engagement among older adult and expanding the reach of the Aging Network to more effectively serve older adults by providing tools and resources necessary for aging organizations to assist older adults to remain socially engaged and active.

An existing or newly formed coalition with signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) to develop a State coalition action plan that advances a full range of strategies to supporting decision making across the age spectrum. The MOUs should describe how the entities participated in the development of the application and how they plan to work together to ensure the goals and objectives included in the application are achieved. At a minimum, the partnership must include: A representative from the state Working Interdisciplinary Networks of Guardianship Stakeholders (WINGS) group, or other similar community network, or identify and recruit a State coalition that includes a WINGS representative, Person with an intellectual or developmental disability A representative from the State office of public guardianship representative (if State has one) and/or Bar Association Elder Law Section and Disability Law Section, A representative from the judicial system, A representative from the Legislative branch A Comprehensive plan that includes: A range of approaches to decisional support, including but not limited to Supported Decision Making (SDM) in the State; The State's guardianship operation/policy/system and/or policies relating to supporting a full range of decision making strategies across the age spectrum; Strategies currently being used to supporting a full range of decision making strategies across the age spectrum in the State; Analysis of any judicial precedent in decisional support; Key existing coalitions; Other state specific characteristics relating to supporting decision making across the age spectrum in the State; Promising practices; Perceived barriers; and Alternatives and limitations on reform of the use of supported decision making on guardianship A formative and consensus process to establish a draft State coalition action plan (or add to an existing one).

The National Institute on Aging invites researchers to submit innovative R01 research grant applications on aging and the family.  The objective of this research program is to expand understanding of the role of families and interpersonal relationships in the health and wellbeing of older people. This will be accomplished through increasing scientific knowledge on the effects of family and interpersonal relationships on behavioral and social processes of relevance to aging; and on how these processes change over the life course and across cohorts. A broad range of methods and approaches are encouraged. 

The Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar program is designed to help established investigators working at institutions in the United States conduct research in the basic biological and basic biomedical sciences relevant to understanding lifespan development processes and age-related diseases and disabilities. The award is intended to provide significant support to allow the development of new, creative research programs by investigators who currently may not be conducting aging research or who wish to develop new research programs in aging. The foundation particularly seeks to stimulate new research that has rigorous scientific foundations but is inadequately funded, either because of its perceived novelty, high risk, or because it is from an area where other "traditional" research interests absorb most funding.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) invites applications for basic research to better characterize the affective, cognitive, social, and motivational parameters of impaired and intact decision making in both normal aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Research is sought that will characterize the extent to which basic behavioral and neural processes involved in decision-making are differentially impacted in normal aging and AD, investigate the influence of social factors on decision-making, and investigate the decision-making factors that render older adults (with or without cognitive impairment) vulnerable to financial exploitation and other forms of mistreatment and abuse. The FOA also invites applications to apply basic research on the processes involved in decision-making to the design of decision-supportive interventions for midlife and older adults with and without AD. Specific opportunities include the development of decision-supportive interventions to leverage cognitive, emotional and motivational strengths of these populations; tools to assess decisional capacity; strategies for simplifying choices and offering better defaults; and the promotion of timely adoption of optimal delegation practices (e.g., power of attorney, living wells, etc.).

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) invites applications for basic research to better characterize the affective, cognitive, social, and motivational parameters of impaired and intact decision making in both normal aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Research is sought that will characterize the extent to which basic behavioral and neural processes involved in decision-making are differentially impacted in normal aging and AD, investigate the influence of social factors on decision-making, and investigate the decision-making factors that render older adults (with or without cognitive impairment) vulnerable to financial exploitation and other forms of mistreatment and abuse. The FOA also invites applications to apply basic research on the processes involved in decision-making to the design of decision-supportive interventions for midlife and older adults with and without AD. Specific opportunities include the development of decision-supportive interventions to leverage cognitive, emotional and motivational strengths of these populations; tools to assess decisional capacity; strategies for simplifying choices and offering better defaults; and the promotion of timely adoption of optimal delegation practices (e.g., power of attorney, living wells, etc.). 

The purpose of this FOA is to invite: 1) descriptive studies to identify putative juvenile protective factors, 2) experimental studies to test hypotheses about their effects on aging and 3) translational studies to characterize potential beneficial and adverse effects of maintaining or modulating the level of juvenile protective factors in adult life. Juvenile protective factors (JPFs), intrinsic to an immature organism, help to maintain or enhance certain physiological functions across all or some stages of postnatal development (i.e., segment of the life span between birth and sexual maturity), but diminish or disappear as the organism transitions from one maturational stage to the next. The loss or diminution of JPFs after a given stage of postnatal development or at time of sexual maturity may contribute to the onset of deleterious aging changes (e.g., compromised stem cell function and reparative capacity) across adulthood. This FOA is uniquely focused on animal and clinical studies which involve comparisons between juvenile versus adult states or between stages of postnatal development to identify putative JPFs and their effects on aging. 

In order to continue to attract new generations of talented investigators, the Glenn/AFAR Scholarships for Research in the Biology of Aging have been established.  The program is designed to give students enrolled in MD, DO, PhD, or combined-degree programs the opportunity to conduct a three-to-six-month research project focused on biomedical research in aging.  The program aims to give students the chance to learn more about the field of aging research, as well as increase their understanding of the challenges involved in improving the quality of life for older people.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages applications for mechanistic research on age-related changes in emotion regulation and how they may contribute to mental disorders in middle-aged and older adults.In particular, research is sought that will advance understanding of irregularities in the integrative neural-behavioral mechanisms of emotion regulation in adult mood and anxiety disorders, and that will examine whether the irregularities are associated with typical or atypical maturational trajectories of emotion processing. If older adults who suffer episodes of affective dysregulation share the same patterns of improved emotional function with age as have been found to be typical of the older adult population in general, understanding of the irregularities involved their dysregulation.It is anticipated that such studies may identify novel targets for mental health interventions or prevention efforts, or provide clues as to which available intervention strategies might be optimally applied to normalize emotion dysregulation or to strengthen emotional resilience at particular stages of the adult life cycle.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is a phased innovation initiative to facilitate multi-omics/integrative approaches to identify omics profiles associated with protection against multiple aging conditions, with exceptional health span, and to refine strategies for utilizing these profiles for therapeutics development. Specifically, a phased innovation cooperative agreement mechanism (UH2/UH3) involving an interdisciplinary research team will be used to support a single project that will conduct integrative analysis of person-specific multiple omics measurements (e.g., transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) generated across multiple tissues; the multi-omic profiling should be conducted on individuals from extensively phenotyped cohorts with substantial numbers of long-lived individuals with characteristics of exceptionally healthy aging and appropriate controls.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications that expand on foundational research demonstrating generally improved emotional function and emotion regulation with aging, to further clarify the trajectories of change in emotion processing and linked neurobiological factors in adults who are aging normally, as well as in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer's disease, and related dementias (ADRD). The goal is three-fold: to advance understanding of (1) normative maturational shifts in emotional processes, (2) how dysfunction in the integrative neural-behavioral mechanisms of emotional function might manifest in MCI and the early stages of ADRD, and/or (3) how such dysfunction might account for any of the neuropsychiatric symptoms observed in ADRD. Such studies may identify novel targets for interventions or prevention efforts, or provide clues to intervention strategies that might be applied to normalize emotion dysregulation or strengthen emotional resilience at different life stages in normal aging or disease stages in MCI and ADRD.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to encourage basic or clinical research applications that investigate central neural mechanisms of age-related hearing loss in older adults and/or in relevant animal models. This FOA is driven by the need to address a major gap in our understanding of the central pathways and neural networks that are involved in hearing loss and how these may be altered in the context of the aging brain, as well as how natural aging influences central auditory plasticity.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications that expand on foundational research demonstrating generally improved emotional function and emotion regulation with aging, to further clarify the trajectories of change in emotion processing and linked neurobiological factors in adults who are aging normally, as well as in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer's disease, and related dementias (ADRD). The goal is three-fold: to advance understanding of (1) normative maturational shifts in emotional processes, (2) how dysfunction in the integrative neural-behavioral mechanisms of emotional function might manifest in MCI and the early stages of ADRD, and/or (3) how such dysfunction might account for any of the neuropsychiatric symptoms observed in ADRD. Such studies may identify novel targets for interventions or prevention efforts, or provide clues to intervention strategies that might be applied to normalize emotion dysregulation or strengthen emotional resilience at different life stages in normal aging or disease stages in MCI and ADRD.