Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Canada faces significant aging of its population as the proportion of seniors increases more rapidly than that of all other age groups. By 2026, one Canadian in five will be 65 years or older. Consequently, one of the most paramount social and economic issues facing the Canadian population is the maintenance of intellectual and cognitive integrity in advanced age, factors that are critical to an autonomous standard of living in later years. Our success in identifying, treating, as well as preventing age-related cognitive, structural, and functional changes in the central nervous system greatly depends on our understanding of healthy aging. My project uses high-field MRI in combinations with some of the newest analytical techniques, such as sparse graphs, to illustrate system-level changes in brain organization that occur as a part of a healthy aging process. The current presentation is based on a large cross-sectional cohort (105 individuals, 18-88 years old, and approximately even male/female distribution) of 4.7 T MRI data. Studying neurocognitive aging will help us better characterize changes in the brain throughout the human lifespan and aid us in identifying preclinical markers for cognitive decline. With the population over 65 years of age rising rapidly, discoveries in this domain will likely have a dramatic impact on public health and substantially reduce the burden on families as well as government and social programs.