Sleep and AD Risk Among Older African Americans

Although past studies done primarily on white Americans report that men have a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and more rapid progression from MCI to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), we do not know if this is also the case for African American men. In particular, there is a paucity of neuroimaging data on older African American men in the years before and during cognitive decline to AD. My proposed study will advance our understanding of neural changes in older African American men, especially those exposed to social conditions that put them at high risk for Alzheimer’s Disease/Related Dementia (ADRD). Also, it will show how the trajectory of these neural changes relates to behavioral, health, neural, lifestyle, social, and environmental risk factors for ADRD. I will utilize baseline observational studies in older, cognitively healthy, urban African American men (N=100) to examine markers of cognitive decline risks. In the first year, I will assess their baseline health, exposure to structural and social determinants of health factors, and cognitive abilities through task-based fMRI. At the end of year one and year 2, I will re-assess their cognitive health and potentially cognitive decline. Increasing African American men’s enrollment in observational studies will allow us to understand better how AD affects men and which tailored interventions are most effective for mitigating ADRD risk and slowing AD progression in African American men. The development of tailored interventions is increasingly urgent given the increase in the number of African American older adults experiencing ADRD and the AD-associated burdens to the individuals, families, and communities. At the end of my post-doctoral training, I will have obtained intensive training experience in structural and functional neuroimaging analytic techniques and increased my knowledge of cognitive and neural markers of AD. Further, I will have gained additional expertise in aging-related chronic illness risk reduction in pre-clinical African American men. The expertise would serve as a basis for my future independent research, where I would focus on social determinants of health to observe and document factors that impact cognitive health and Alzheimer’s disease risks reduction in urban African American men.