Why some people stay mentally sharp into their 90s
Official title: Cognitively Healthy Nonagenarians in the Cross Cohort Collaboration (CCC)
Funded at University of Texas Hlth Science Center · NIH-11470426 · Data updated 2026-11-12
Combining long-term health data from many older adults to find what helps people stay mentally sharp into their 90s.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Texas Hlth Science Center NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (San Antonio, United States) |
| Project start | September 1, 2018 |
| Project end | January 31, 2031 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $338,964 |
| NIH project number | 3R01AG059421-02S2 |
| Project ID | NIH-11470426 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are older adults—especially people aged 85 or older—or adults who previously joined long-term health cohorts and can share their medical histories, imaging, or blood samples.
✕Less likely to help
People seeking an immediate new treatment or short-term clinical benefit are unlikely to gain direct benefit because this is an observational data‑linking project rather than a therapy trial.
What this research studies
This project brings together many long-running health studies to examine people who lived into their 90s without dementia. Researchers harmonize medical records, brain imaging, blood biomarkers (like Aβ42), genetic factors such as APOE, and lifestyle information collected from midlife onward. Pooling data across cohorts increases the chance to spot rare patterns of resilience and contributors to dementia that single studies cannot detect. The team aims to learn what risk factors and protective traits predict cognitive health in the oldest-old.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could reveal preventable risk factors or protective traits that help people remain cognitively healthy into very old age.
How similar studies have gone: Large cohort collaborations like CHARGE have identified dementia risk factors before, but using pooled cohorts specifically to study resilience in the oldest-old is a newer approach with less direct precedent.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Texas Hlth Science Center
San Antonio, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Seshadri, Sudha — University of Texas Hlth Science Center
- Study coordinator: Seshadri, Sudha
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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.