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This RFA invites applications for planning awards to develop and finalize protocols for well-powered cognitive training intervention trials to remediate or prevent age-related cognitive decline as well as possibly prevent or delay the onset of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Planning activities may include the collection of pilot data and the refinement of cognitive training protocols consistent with Stage I of the NIH Stage Model. Trial designs must justify the means used to assess cognition and to explore the underlying mechanisms of change. Such methods as structural and functional neuroimaging with biomarkers justified by an underlying model of change, CSF fluids, and blood biomarkers are appropriate candidate tools.

Despite established associations between white matter lesions and cognitive impairment including dementia, little prospective information is available to define the characteristics of white matter lesions and associated comorbid clinical factors that cause further cognitive impairment, ultimately resulting in dementia. This initiative will support one large prospective clinical research study in the U.S. of patients engaged with the health care system because of incidental white matter lesions found on neuroimaging, who present with cognitive complaints, and who thus are at risk for cognitive decline. The goal will be to determine the volume and anatomical features that are both necessary and sufficient to cause cognitive impairment or dementia.

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 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and National Institute on Aging (NIA) intend to publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit applications for a large prospective clinical research study to determine the specific subsets of stroke events that predict cognitive impairment and dementia in post-stroke populations in the United States, including in health disparities populations, and what additional clinical factors and comorbidities along the AD/ADRD spectrum may causally synergize with stroke to result in (or prevent) cognitive impairment and dementia outcomes. The goals of this initiative are to determine the association between specific subsets of stroke events and subsequent cognitive impairment and dementia in post-stroke populations in the United States, including in health disparities populations; to identify additional clinical factors and comorbidities that may affect these associations; and to contribute to development and validation of clinical-trial ready diagnostic and progression biomarkers for post-stroke dementia. It is expected that the study design will also allow for determination of interrelationships (cross-sectional and longitudinal) among the stroke event, overall cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease and risk factors (including sex, racial, and ethnic differences), dementia-relevant genetic variants (including ApoE) and mutations (e.g. in Notch 3) previously associated with Alzheimer's disease (e.g. APP, PS1, PS2, PICALM, CLU, TREM2), cognitive trajectories including decline and resistance to decline, as well as amyloid and tau biomarkers of Alzheimers pathology during life.

The purpose of the American Heart Association/Allen Initiative in Brain Health and Cognitive Impairment is to discover and fund highly promising teams of investigators who can expand the frontiers of bioscience, pursuing creative, transformative ideas with the potential to move brain health and cognitive impairment science forward. The initiative will award up to $43 million over eight years to one or more highly inspiring and innovative integrated team(s) for large-scale integrated research that identifies novel, early, actionable, biological/mechanistic contributors to age-related cognitive impairment.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications to establish a network to identify, evaluate, track, and conduct research across multiple sites on older adults with superior cognitive performance for their age ("cognitive super agers"). The activity would support aggregation of sufficient numbers of these individuals to advance the fields understanding of factors that promote sustained cognitive health and those that are not of primary importance. Uniform identification and uniform data collection will allow the study of the behavioral, neurological, health, genetic, environmental, and lifestyle profiles that lead to sustained cognitive and brain function in advanced age. Where extant data exists, harmonization protocols would need to be developed in order to make use of all currently available data. Provision of protocols to obtain brain tissue at autopsy would be an important component.

With a rapidly growing aged U.S. population, maintenance of cognitive function has become increasingly critical for the health, welfare, and well-being of the country's citizens. According to a recent survey conducted by the AARP, virtually all adults age 40+ believe maintaining or improving brain health is important; three-quarters of adults age 40+ are concerned about their brain health declining in the future.  Although chronological age itself remains the strongest predictor of age-related cognitive decline and many forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD), it has become clear that there are protective factors against these outcomes that are poorly understood. These factors have often been described as imparting resilience or resistance to age-related changes in brain structure or neuropathology, building cognitive and/or brain reserve that would oppose such age-related changes or frank pathology, or augmenting other types of cognitive and brain function that would be beneficial. Some of these protective factors might suggest important intervention strategies.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to stimulate clinical research focused on biobehavioral or technological interventions to attenuate cognitive decline in individuals with dementia (such as Alzheimers disease, Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or disease- or age-related cognitive decline. There is particular interest in interventions that can be implemented in community settings by the affected individual, informal caregivers, or others in the community. Research to inform the development of such interventions is also of interest, as well as research examining underlying mechanisms and biomarkers associated with response to interventions. It is anticipated that the results of this research will help affected individuals maintain independence and quality of life, improve their ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and additionally help to reduce stress, burden, and other poor outcomes in their caregivers.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages transdisciplinary research that will leverage cognitive neuroscience to improve traditional measurement of cognitive impairment following cancer treatment, often referred to as chemobrain. A better understanding of the acute- and late-term cognitive changes following exposure to adjuvant chemotherapy and molecularly-targeted treatments, including hormonal therapy, for non-central nervous system tumors can inform clinical assessment protocols with downstream implications for survivorship care plans.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to stimulate clinical research focused on biobehavioral or technological interventions to attenuate cognitive decline in individuals with dementia (such as Alzheimer's disease, Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or disease- or age-related cognitive decline. There is particular interest in interventions that can be implemented in community settings by the affected individual, informal caregivers, or others in the community. Research to inform the development of such interventions is also of interest, as well as research examining underlying mechanisms and biomarkers associated with response to interventions. It is anticipated that the results of this research will help affected individuals maintain independence and quality of life, improve their ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and additionally help to reduce stress, burden, and other poor outcomes in their caregivers. Also listed under R21

In May of 2013 the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), with input from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), held an Alzheimer's Disease-Related Dementias Conference in response to the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease. The Conference brought together national and international experts and members of the public to develop research priorities for accelerating the development of therapies for the Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (ADRDs). The ADRD 2013 research recommendations that resulted are part of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease. This FOA addresses the National Plan's highest priority for human-based research on vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID): to develop noninvasive markers of key vascular processes related to VCID in Alzheimer's and related dementias. The research program initiated here underscores the need to facilitate the development of biomarkers to improve the efficiency and outcome of Phase II and III clinical trials and advance therapeutic development. These companion FOAs (RFA-NS-16-019, i.e. this FOA; and RFA-NS-16-020 for the Biomarkers Development Projects) establish the Small Vessel VCID Biomarkers Consortium, and are focused on small vessel (i.e. arterioles, capillaries, and venules) VCID in vascular cognitive impairment (VCI), vascular dementia, and all mixed and pure cognitive impairment and dementias with contributing small vessel vascular disease, including such as commonly occurs in sporadic Alzheimer's disease. Awards funded under these two FOAs create a consortium and infrastructure to complete development projects as well as planning that will enable follow-up activities (to be carried out under future separate funding; for example large scale multi-site validation studies and other activities, for future FDA qualification of small vessel VCID biomarkers and use in clinical trials).

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to provide infrastructure support to advance development of operational definitions and approaches for the study of the concepts of cognitive reserve and resilience to Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) and age-related cognitive decline. The infrastructure support will facilitate a collaborative research network through meetings, conferences, small-scale pilots, and dissemination activities to foster development and champion use of state-of-the-art definitions, uniform nomenclature, and validated approaches that will be key to the advancement of research on maintenance of brain and cognitive health and treatment and/or prevention of ADRD.

The goal of this FOA is to advance research on the underlying basis for the transfer (or transposition) of aging phenotypes observed between young and old rodents and discovered through heterochronic parabiosis. Examples of transposed phenotypes include reversal of cardiac hypertrophy, partial restoration of cognitive function, improved vascularization, and repair of skeletal muscle after cryo-injury (anti-geronic transposition), or as accelerated loss of cognitive function and neurogenesis (pro-geronic transposition). Other transposed phenotypes, as revealed solely through heterochronic parabiosis, may also be reported in the literature. There are also reports of candidate factors found in circulation that might be causally related to the transposition of these aging phenotypes; these are termed "circulating geronic factors" for purposes of this FOA. To date, these are proteins and peptides that pass between the young and old mice joined by parabiosis, due to anastomosis of their circulatory systems. Based on these novel findings and this novel experimental paradigm, the specific objective of this FOA is to test whether these candidate geronic factors are necessary for the transposition of aging phenotypes. The focus is on phenotypes transposed in heterochronic parabiosis and the candidate factors which are present and functional at physiological concentrations in circulation.

The goal of this FOA is to advance research on the underlying basis for the transfer (or transposition) of aging phenotypes observed between young and old rodents and discovered through heterochronic parabiosis. Examples of transposed phenotypes include reversal of cardiac hypertrophy, partial restoration of cognitive function, improved vascularization, and repair of skeletal muscle after cryo-injury (anti-geronic transposition), or as accelerated loss of cognitive function and neurogenesis (pro-geronic transposition). Other transposed phenotypes, as revealed solely through heterochronic parabiosis, may also be reported in the literature. There are also reports of candidate factors found in circulation that might be causally related to the transposition of these aging phenotypes; these are termed "circulating geronic factors" for purposes of this FOA. To date, these are proteins and peptides that pass between the young and old mice joined by parabiosis, due to anastomosis of their circulatory systems. Based on these novel findings and this novel experimental paradigm, the specific objective of this FOA is to test whether these candidate geronic factors are necessary for the transposition of aging phenotypes. The focus is on phenotypes transposed in heterochronic parabiosis and the candidate factors which are present and functional at physiological concentrations in circulation.

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 funding opportunity announcement (FOA) solicits R01 grant applications from applicant organizations that propose to develop and implement interventions to remediate age-related cognitive decline. A crucial feature of these applications will be the embedding of the testing of the proposed intervention into a measurement framework that will: 1) help elucidate its mechanism of action; 2) identify specific individuals who are more likely or less likely to benefit from the intervention, and 3) examine whether adaptive plastic changes have occurred in the structure or function of the CNS as a result of the intervention, and whether these neural changes help explain the pattern of improvement seen in cognitive functioning. Although projects may include an observational component, the interventions developed should be tested in a randomized clinical trial (RCT).

Supports research on perception, action and cognition. Emphasis is on research strongly grounded in theory. Central research topics for consideration by the Perception, Action, and Cognition panel include vision, audition, haptics, attention, memory, reasoning, written and spoken discourse, and motor control. The program encompasses a wide range of theoretical perspectives, such as symbolic computation, connectionism, ecological, nonlinear dynamics, and complex systems, and a variety of methodologies including both experimental studies and modeling.

The purpose of the RERC program is to improve the effectiveness of services authorized under the Rehabilitation Act by conducting advanced engineering research on and development of innovative technologies that are designed to solve particular rehabilitation problems or to remove environmental barriers. RERCs also demonstrate and evaluate such technologies, facilitate service delivery system changes, stimulate the production and distribution of new technologies and equipment in the private sector, and provide training opportunities. Field-Initiated RERC on Technology to Enhance Independence and Community Living for People with Cognitive Impairments: In this area, NIDILRR seeks to fund research and development toward technologies that contribute to improved abilities of adults with cognitive impairment to perform daily activities of their choice in the home, community, or workplace.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications that focus on clarifying the relationship between delirium and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). Specifically sought is research focusing on understanding why persons with ADRD are at increased risk to develop delirium, often with a worse prognosis compared to those without antecedent ADRD, and why patients who experience delirium are at higher risk to develop subsequent short- and/or long-term mild cognitive impairment or ADRD, often with an accelerated rate of cognitive decline compared to those without preceding delirium. Relevant research projects may focus on, but are not limited to, those that A) provide insight into possible common, sequential, causative, contributory and/or synergistic pathways underlying both ADRD and delirium, B) elucidate mechanisms that lead to the development of delirium against the background of aging and/or neurodegeneration, with particular emphasis on use of appropriate animal models, C) identify risk factors for the onset and/or progression of delirium in those with ADRD and vice versa, D) diagnose and assess one condition in the setting of the other, E) identify putative phenotypes of patients with co-existing ADRD and delirium, or F) test pharmacologic and/or non-pharmacologic strategies to prevent, treat, or reduce the impact of delirium in patients with ADRD and vice versa. Research supported by this FOA is intended to provide mechanistic insight to improve risk assessment, diagnosis, phenotyping, prevention, and management approaches for both delirium and ADRD.

Through its Science of Hope and Optimism Funding Initiative program, the association will award two-year grants of up to $250,000 for research projects that use a variety of methods to explore the nature of hope and optimism. Priority will be given to projects in cognitive, developmental, personality, health, and social psychology, as well as sociology. Interdisciplinary teams that include members from cognate areas - e.g., cognitive science, anthropology, nursing, and biology - are encouraged.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications that focus on clarifying the relationship between delirium and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). Specifically sought is research focusing on understanding why persons with ADRD are at increased risk to develop delirium, often with a worse prognosis compared to those without antecedent ADRD, and why patients who experience delirium are at higher risk to develop subsequent short- and/or long-term mild cognitive impairment or ADRD, often with an accelerated rate of cognitive decline compared to those without preceding delirium. Relevant research projects may focus on, but are not limited to, those that A) provide insight into possible common, sequential, causative, contributory and/or synergistic pathways underlying both ADRD and delirium, B) elucidate mechanisms that lead to the development of delirium against the background of aging and/or neurodegeneration, with particular emphasis on use of appropriate animal models, C) identify risk factors for the onset and/or progression of delirium in those with ADRD and vice versa, D) diagnose and assess one condition in the setting of the other, E) identify putative phenotypes of patients with co-existing ADRD and delirium, or F) test pharmacologic and/or non-pharmacologic strategies to prevent, treat, or reduce the impact of delirium in patients with ADRD and vice versa. Research supported by this FOA is intended to provide mechanistic insight to improve risk assessment, diagnosis, phenotyping, prevention, and management approaches for both delirium and ADRD.