NIH Augments Large Scale Study of Alzheimer Disease Biomarkers
To meet the pressing need to better understand the prevalence, progression, and clinical impact of Alzheimer's disease among Mexican Americans, the
"To successfully battle and ultimately prevent or treat a complex disease such as Alzheimer's, we need to understand how this disease and other forms of dementia affect our nation's diverse communities differently," said
Developing a better understanding of how and why many diseases affect diverse communities in different ways is paramount in the search for treatments and prevention for Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia. While studies suggest that dementia prevalence (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/national-study-reports-decreased-dementia-prevalence) rates appear to be declining, most of this evidence is based on studies in non-Latino whites; it is largely unknown whether these trends extend to under-represented populations.
Launched in
An additional benefit of HABLE and HABLE AT(N) will be the ability to better classify/categorize participants into groups by type of dementia and stage of the disease. This will help facilitate potential enrollment in future studies.
The research teams for HABLE and HABLE-AT(N) consist of leading experts in Mexican American cognitive aging, neuroimaging, blood-based biomarkers, as well as advanced statistical modeling.
Projections from the
"The scope and urgency of HABLE and HABLE-AT(N) is crucial for this underserved population," said
NIA is committed to supporting studies on risk factors related to health disparities. A key part of the HABLE-AT(N) study is its alignment with the NIA-Alzheimer's Association Research Framework (https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/new-biological-research-framework-alzheimers-seeks-spur-discovery). This biological construct is based on three general groups of biomarkers: beta-amyloid (A), tau (T), and neurodegeneration or neuronal injury (N). Also referred to as the AT(N) research framework, it is designed to facilitate better understanding of the disease process and the sequence of events that lead to cognitive impairment and dementia. HABLE and HABLE-AT(N) are also responsive to the NIA Health Disparities Research Framework (https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/osp/framework).
The new study is instrumental in making sure Alzheimer's biomarker studies are increasingly representative of the population. HABLE-AT(N) will provide a variety of biological, behavioral, environmental, and sociocultural data to examine the big picture of how Alzheimer's affects people throughout their lives. There will also be data to determine whether Mexican Americans experience the same Alzheimer's biomarker trajectory reported in past studies.
The HABLE-AT(N) Study is funded by
NIA leads
* Clarify the epidemiology of health disparities in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) prevalence and incidence by documenting and monitoring trends in health disparities in AD/ADRD prevalence and incidence over time.
* Initiate studies to link peripheral blood-based molecular signatures and central imaging and CSF biomarkers.
* Expand existing large scale, open-science molecular profiling efforts.
NIA recently updated its website with a new Spanish-language health information landing page: www.nia.nih.gov/espanol. Current information is available on subjects such as Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, as well as clinical trials and other aging-related health topics.
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