Cecily O'Connor
RedwoodAge.com

At least $39 million in American Recovery Act money is being handed out to several medical teams to expand research on Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, is helping disperse the grant money by identifying several promising areas of research, such as new and ongoing studies to identify additional risk factor genes associated with Alzheimer's, improve diagnostic tools, find biomarkers, develop therapies, conduct clinical trials and explore preventive measures.

Overall, more than 100 Alzheimer's or Alzheimer's-related research grants were awarded under the Recovery Act. Some of the funding will advance the work of existing NIA initiatives.

"Over the next two years, the recipients will use this unprecedented boost in research funds to help reach our ultimate goal of understanding age-related cognitive decline and reducing the individual and societal burden of this devastating disease," said Dr. Richard Hodes, NIA director.

To that end, the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) is receiving $24 million in stimulus funds for an initiative that will help identify brain changes before Alzheimer's symptoms surface.

"Researchers and clinicians need imaging and biomarker tools to detect and understand the very earliest signs of pathology that cause changes in the brain some 10 to 20 years before any clinical symptoms of cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's may appear," said Dr. Michael Weiner, ADNI principal researcher.

Currently, more than 5 million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease. Boomers are thought to be particularly susceptible to cognitive decline, given that the primary risk factor of Alzheimer's is age.

The number of older adults with Alzheimer's disease is rising by more than 1.5 million a year, highlighting the need for greater action as more boomers join the ranks of a graying US population. November is National Alzheimer's Disease Prevention Month.

Among other grants:

• $5.4 million was given to the Alzheimer's Genetics Consortium to add more patients to a previously funded study that aims identify genes affecting one's risk for late-onset Alzheimer's;
• $4.7 million in Recovery Act funds will be used by researchers at Rush University Medical Center for a genome project examining cognitive decline in older African-Americans;
• $820,000 in funds has been earmarked for researchers at the Duke University School of Medicine to developing methods for identifying combinations of genes that might influence age-related risk of Alzheimer's;

Other studies made possible by the Recovery Act range from clinical trials to epigenomic studies to translational research, representing more than $4 million in funding, according to the NIA.