How money stress over your life may affect brain aging and dementia risk
Official title: Investigating financial wellbeing, biological aging, and risk of Alzheimers disease and related dementias in a life course synthetic cohort
Funded at Boston University Medical Campus · NIH-11384761 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether long-term financial worries and strain across life speed up biological aging and raise the chance of Alzheimer’s and related dementias for adults.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Boston University Medical Campus NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Boston, United States) |
| Project start | December 15, 2023 |
| Project end | April 30, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $245,031 |
| NIH project number | 5R00AG084769-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11384761 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
People included in long-term U.S. cohort studies—especially adults who experienced persistent financial hardship from adolescence or early adulthood through later life—are the most relevant group for this work.
✕Less likely to help
People whose dementia is driven primarily by strong genetic causes, those already in advanced dementia, or individuals not represented in the U.S. cohort data may not gain direct benefit from this analysis.
What this research studies
Researchers combine decades of health, financial, and biological data from a large U.S. cohort to follow people from adolescence into older age. They link measures like income, debt, difficulty paying bills, and money-related stress to biological aging markers (for example, epigenetic clocks or other lab measures) and later memory and thinking performance using life-course statistical models and a synthetic cohort approach. The work uses existing Add Health data and linked biospecimens or medical records, so most activity is analysis of previously collected human data rather than enrolling new volunteers. By comparing financial histories and aging markers across people, the team aims to identify when financial strain most strongly affects brain aging and future dementia risk.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, findings could point to time windows and targets for financial or social interventions that might lower dementia risk.
How similar studies have gone: Prior research has linked low socioeconomic status and chronic stress to cognitive decline and has used biological aging measures, but combining detailed life-course financial histories with biological aging to predict dementia risk is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
-
Boston University Medical Campus
Boston, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Kezios, Katrina L — Boston University Medical Campus
- Study coordinator: Kezios, Katrina L
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.