Aging Clinical Trials

The purpose of this study is to use an experimental inflammatory challenge to examine whether older adults with symptoms of anxiety experience loss of pleasure or loss of motivation when they are exposed to inflammation. Loss of pleasure or loss of motivation will be evaluated using self-report questionnaires, computer tasks, and during a brain scan. Read Less

The present study will evaluate the effects of both aging and nicotine on psychophysical tasks and electrophysiological measures. Nicotine will be administered to study participants in the form of gum that is available as an over-the-counter medication. The hypothesis is that nicotine will reverse the detrimental effects of aging on auditory processing. The proposed experiments will characterize the effects of nicotine and may eventually lead to improved treatments of hearing loss in a variety of patient populations and in healthy aging. Read Less

To prospectively determine the burden of hypoglycemia (minutes spent below 70 mg/dl per day, measured by continuous glucose monitor (CGM)) among residents of long term care facilities (LTC) with a diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes including key clinical subgroups (living in skilled nursing facility (SNF) or nursing home (NH), on different hypoglycemic medications). This aim will be achieved by recruiting 300 residents with diabetes in 4 LTC facilities. All participants will undergo masked CGM for 10 days. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to investigate brain activity during current visual and auditory tasks for balance control. The participants will perform cognitive, gait, and balance measures before the data collection to exclude people with neurological disorders. The participants will wear VR headset which provides visual tasks. The participants will need to maintain balance while performing concurrent visual and auditory tasks. The brain activities, reaction time, and eye-tracking data will be collected during doing our experimental tasks. Read Less

In a randomized controlled trial, to study the utility of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) to improve functional outcomes in adults aged ≥70 years with heart failure (HF) who have been referred to palliative care for end-stage HF management. * The study team hypothesize that older HF patients will be able to use IMT safely, reliably, and effectively in a 12-week home-based training regimen. * The study team hypothesize that physical function (sit to stand, gait speed, grip strength), respiratory/pulmonary function, self-efficacy, fatigue and quality of life will increase among older HF patients randomized IMT versus those randomized to usual care. Read Less

The proposed study seeks to evaluate effectiveness, implementation processes, and cost of MOTIVATE among older Veterans with chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain and comorbid depressive symptoms. Read Less

The goal of this clinical trial is to test the effects of different types of exercise on brain health and Alzheimer's risk in older African Americans. Specifically, the main question\[s\] it aims to answer are: * What is the effect of a Cardio-Dance Fitness (CDF) vs. a Strength, Flexibility, and Balance (SFB) intervention on a cognitive marker of Alzheimer's risk, generalization? * What is the effect of the CDF vs. SFB intervention on a fMRI biomarker of Alzheimer's, neural flexibility, and do improvements in neural flexibility mediate improvements in generalization? * Do ABCA7 genotypic variations moderate the efficacy of the CDF vs. SFB intervention for reducing Alzheimer's risk? Participants will undergo-- at baseline and post-test-- health assessments, cognitive tests, and structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and a blood-draw to assess Alzheimer's risk biomarker levels. Read Less

Women are at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Notably at menopause, some women experience a change in cognition. However, not all women experience negative effects of menopause on cognition. The cognitive changes that occur at menopause have not yet been connected to late life risk for pathological aging including AD. Thus, understanding the neurobiological factors related to individual differences in cognition at menopause is critical for understanding normal cognitive aging and for determining risk for pathological aging. The challenge in understanding the role of estrogen loss on the risk for AD is the long lag time between the hormonal changes at menopause and the clinical manifestations of AD. Thus, identifying how the hormone changes after menopause are related to AD risk will alter the risk calculus for postmenopausal women in the future. The novel study proposed here will examine an established AD-related neurotransmitter-based mechanism that may also underlie cognitive changes after menopause. The investigators propose that the change in the hormonal milieu at menopause interacts with the cholinergic system and other brain pathologies to influence a woman's risk for cognitive decline. Preclinical studies have shown that estrogen is necessary for normal cholinergic functioning and its withdrawal leads to cholinergic dysfunction and cognitive impairment. It is important to determine whether menopause-related cognitive changes correlate with both cholinergic functional integrity and established AD biomarkers that portend increased risk for late-life cognitive impairment or dementia. This study will examine brain functioning following cholinergic blockade to separate individuals into those who are able to compensate for the hormone change after menopause and those who are not. The investigators hypothesize women with poor compensation have increased sensitivity to cholinergic blockade by showing poor performance on a cognitive task, altered brain activation, and decreased basal forebrain cholinergic system (BFCS) volume. These cholinergic markers will be related to menopausal factors associated with poor cognition and biomarkers of AD. Specific Aim 1 is to examine cholinergic functional "integrity" by measuring working memory performance, functional brain activation, and BFCS structure in postmenopausal women. Specific Aim 2 will examine whether individual differences in menopause-relevant symptoms and known AD biomarkers are related to cognition and brain activation after anticholinergic challenge. The public health significance of this study is that it will identify individual difference factors that are associated with cognitive performance changes after menopause and their relationship to structural, functional, and biomarker evidence of risk for later life cognitive dysfunction. Knowledge of these factors will serve to advance personalized future risk-mitigation strategies for women including hormonal, medication, cognitive remediation, etc. that will be the subject of further research. Read Less

The 2020 NIMH Strategic Plan for Research calls for investigations targeting neurobiology of mental illness across the lifespan. Growing evidence suggests that lifespan neurobiology of schizophrenia (SZ) incorporates two distinct dimensions: aging and disease course. However, their clinical correlates, associated biomarker trajectories, and implications for treatment are unknown. This study will investigate differential aspects of SZ neurobiology captured by aging and disease course, in order to develop specific biomarkers which may offer actionable targets for SZ stage-dependent intervention. The study is predicated on a novel mechanistic Model of SZ Trajectories across the Adult Lifespan, positing distinct biological fingerprints within the anterior limbic system for aging and disease course in SZ: (1) alterations in the circuit's function and structure that occur earlier in the lifespan and are larger in magnitude than the alterations expected with normal aging (accelerated aging dimension); and (2) regionally-specific anterior limbic "hyperactivity" in early SZ, with a subsequent transformation into "hypoactivity" in advanced SZ (disease course dimension). In a sample of SZ and matched healthy controls (n=168, 84/group) aged 18-75 years the investigators will ascertain a broad panel of biomarkers \[via multimodal brain imaging: optimized 1H-MRS, high-resolution task-based fMRI, perfusion (Vascular Space Occupancy) and structural MRI\], along with comprehensive cognitive and clinical assessments. All measures will be acquired at baseline and repeated at 2-year longitudinal follow-up. Using cutting-edge computational approaches, the study will examine (i) effects of aging and SZ course on anterior limbic system biomarkers; (ii) lifespan trajectories for different biomarkers; (iii) patterns of limbic system biomarkers in age- and SZ course-based subgroups (e.g., Younger vs. Older, Early-Course vs. Advanced SZ), as well as in data-driven subgroups (e.g., those with vs. without accelerated aging profiles); and (iv) associations between biomarkers and cognitive and clinical outcomes. This research will advance the field by providing novel biomarkers that capture unique neurobiological contributions of aging and disease course in SZ, and will motivate future studies on SZ mechanisms across the lifespan and development of precision treatments. Read Less

Dementia is a leading cause of death in the United States among aging adults. Brain insulin resistance has emerged as a pathologic factor affecting memory, executive function as well as systemic glucose control. Regular aerobic exercise decreases Alzheimer's Disease (AD) risk, in part, through changes in brain structure and function. However, there is limited data available on how exercise impacts brain insulin resistance in aging. This study will test the effect of acute exercise on brain insulin sensitivity in middle-aged to older adults. The study will also examine cognition and cardiometabolic health in relation to brain insulin sensitivity. Read Less

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Aging is the primary risk factor for CVD, in large part due to adverse modifications to the arteries. These modifications include vascular endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness. Vascular endothelial dysfunction is an initiating step in atherosclerosis, and is primarily caused by reduced nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability secondary to excessive superoxide-driven oxidative stress and inflammation. Endothelial dysfunction leads to arterial stiffness and the development of hypertension (HTN) which further increases CVD. Greater than 2/3 of the US population has elevated blood pressure or stage 1-HTN. As such, interventions that improve vascular endothelial dysfunction by increasing NO bioavailability and mitigating excessive oxidative stress and inflammation are needed. Blueberries are rich in bioactive compounds including flavonoids, phenolic acids, and pterostilbene. These compounds and their metabolites have been shown to attenuate oxidative stress and inflammation. The primary goal of this study is to assess the efficacy of blueberries to improve reduce blood pressure and improve vascular endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness in middle-aged/older men with elevated blood pressure or stage 1-HTN. Read Less

This study will implement a Western Diet (WD) to understand cardiometabolic and immune function in middle-aged adults (50- 64 years old). Vascular health, intestinal permeability, and T-cell function will be examined before, during, and after the WD. The WD is a 10-day diet and will consist of 25% of total energy from added sugars. Read Less