Grant: Project Grant

Simply getting older, aging, is the main risk factor for many of the most common chronic diseases. A small brain area, the hypothalamus, is emerging as a crucial regulator of our body's aging processes. The hypothalamus normally plays a critical role in the maintenance of the body's neural, hormonal and metabolism processes, and disturbances in its function can accelerate our body's aging rate and therefore development of chronic diseases. Due to its small size, anatomical placement in the brain, and mixture of many different types of brain cells, studying the hypothalamus is an experimental challenge in both humans and even in "simpler" experimental animal models. In this project, we aim to help fill an important gap in research knowledge, overcoming these challenges in order to explore how the hypothalamus ages and how it is affected by Alzheimer's disease, the principal cause of dementia (age related decline in mental function). The project will achieve this by a unique collaboration between scientists having specialized expertise in i) discovering biological principles from animal models of aging and Alzheimer's, ii) obtaining and studying rare and valuable brains of deceased persons with Alzheimer's disease, and iii) analyzing brain scans of living persons, with and without Alzheimer's disease, as they get older. The outcomes of this project will provide a wealth of new knowledge that will facilitate the development of new strategies, both lifestyle- and drug-based, for maximizing "healthspan".