$1.8M NIH grant funds research at Cleveland Clinic that may help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in women

A grant expected to total $1.8 million from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institute of Health will help propel forward a research initiative for women at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

Jessica Caldwell, Ph.D., director of The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Prevention Center at Cleveland Clinic, was awarded the grant “to study the interactive effects of gender and sex on biological processes in Alzheimer’s disease,” a release from Cleveland Clinic states.

According to the release, the grant is for four years and will allow for the examination of how gender-linked stress exposure and estrogen may interact to impact things like memory, as well as the impact on inflammation in the body and brain activation and connectivity in women that are at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

“We know that gender and sex, indexed by stress exposures and estrogen, promote changes in the brain, which may facilitate Alzheimer’s pathology in women at risk for the disease,” said Dr. Caldwell. “This project is an opportunity to better understand these mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease risk and how we might implement the appropriate risk reduction approaches to benefit women.”

Caldwell anticipates data from the study will provide evidence linking greater lifetime gender-based stressor exposures to poorer verbal memory in women at risk for the disease, “as well as processes likely to contribute to sex and gender disparities in the disease,” according to the release.

Caldwell is hoping the study’s findings will lead to the development of interventions targeting stress and inflammation that would reduce Alzheimer’s risk.

Caldwell has worked to develop the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Prevention Center at Cleveland Clinic, inside the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. The center is the nation’s first prevention center that was designed specifically for women.

The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about women’s increased risk for Alzheimer’s and educating the public, has helped to fund Caldwell’s sex-based research since 2016. This funding has provided the seed money to establish the center in Las Vegas, as well as providing the seed money to build the data infrastructure to apply for the recent grant. The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement was founded by journalist, author and philanthropist Maria Shriver.

“Alzheimer’s research, particularly studies examining the role of a woman’s biology, genetic make-up and lifestyle in developing the disease, is critical in helping us understand why women are at the epicenter of this epidemic,” said Maria Shriver, founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement and the visionary behind The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Prevention Center.

Shriver continued: “We’ve only scratched the surface on investigating these connections, and more funding is needed to advance the effort. This award from the NIH is a true testament to the importance of investing in clinical research, as it will position us one step closer to understanding the myriad gender-specific factors that contribute to Alzheimer’s and why the disease discriminates against women, especially women of color.”

The center opened in the summer of 2020 at Lou Ruvo and has since welcomed women from 40 states and received honorable mention in Fast Company’s list of 2021 World Changing Ideas.

For more information about The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Prevention Center at Cleveland Clinic, head to WomenPreventAlz.org or send an email to womenpreventalz@ccf.org