Major Research Grants FY 2020 & 2021
By Faculty Member
Primary investigators and their studies
DEANNAH BYRD, PI
Cognitive Decline in African Americans: The Impact of Hypertension, Stress & Coping
Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (1Y) / $23,780
This project uses secondary data taken from the Baltimore Study of Black Aging to examine whether health and psychosocial factors that differ by race underlie racial inequalities in cognitive decline in older U.S. adults.
MALCOLM CUTCHIN, Co-PI
African American Resilience in Surviving Cancer (ARISE)
National Cancer Institute (5Y) / $3,118,000
A longitudinal examination of the critical domains that lead to disparities in health-related quality of life in African American cancer survivors versus non-Hispanic white survivors.
JESSICA DAMOISEAUX, Co-PI
Yoga, Aerobic and Stretching Exercise Effects on Neurocognitive Performance: A Randomized Controlled Trial
National Institute on Aging (with University of Illinois) (5Y) / $340,000
Assist with research design, coordinate MRI data processing and analysis, and contribute to interpretation and dissemination of the results through her Connect Lab for Brain Connectivity and Aging.
ANA DAUGHERTY, PI
Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center (1Y) / $39,000
Mid-life hypertension is a risk factor for several neurodegenerative diseases that also present with abnormal brain iron concentration, including vascular dementia and ADRD. Identifying pathways that convey this risk may identify clinical interventions to help maintain cognition.
HEATHER FRITZ, PI
National Institutes of Health (3Y) / $462,000
African American disparities in chronic condition self-management often stem from physicians' poor understanding of and empathy for their complex medical challenges. Patients' stories have been used to share knowledge, understanding, and reflective listening and foster successful behavior change among patients.
Frailty Prevention in Older African Americans
Michigan Health Endowment (2Y) / $256,000
Tailor lifestyle changes and rehabilitation to individual participants to delay or prevent frailty while promoting independence and improving health.
THOMAS JANKOWSKI, PI
Elder Law of Michigan/Office of Violence (5Y) / $90,000
Assist in collecting, testing and evaluating data as well as helping in the design and testing of tools and processes to complete Elder Law of Michigan's grant project with the Department of Justice.
Time Slips Creative (2Y) / $20,000
Engaging partners in a pilot project in SE Michigan to bring creative engagement to family, community and professional caregivers through Story Kits and Engagement Parties for persons with dementia.
Southeast Michigan Senior Alliance (1Y) / $16,000
Review, provide expert advice, and assist with all aspects of the program evaluation of the Senior Regional Collaborative's Integrated Care project.
VOYKO KAVCIC, PI
Community Based Approach to Early ID of MCI to Alzheimer's Disease in African Americans (R01)
National Institutes of Health (5Y) / $3.3M
Use low-cost computerized tests and EEGs to detect early cognitive changes in otherwise healthy older African Americans and determine those at risk for later mild cognitive changes or Alzheimer's disease.
PETER LICHTENBERG
Co-Director with Dr. Robert Taylor (U-M), National Institute on Aging (5Y) / $1.25M
Reduce health disparities between older African Americans and other ethnic groups through research, faculty mentoring and education. MCUAAAR is a two-decade project between the IOG and the U-M.
Site PI, National Institutes of Health / National Institute on Aging (10Y) / $500,000
As Research Education Component Core Co-Leader of this tri-university consortium grant, the IOG is training junior faculty across a wide variety of topics relevant to Alzheimer's disease including minority outreach and subject recruitment in the Detroit area.
Successful Aging after Financial Exploitation
PI, Department of Justice (3Y) / $499,000
A project to deliver financial coaching and identity recovery services to vulnerable populations in the Detroit city area and the rural Michigan county of Hillsdale.
PI, National Institutes of Health (2Y) / $423,500
PI, Michigan Health Endowment Fund (2Y) / $414,000
Deliver new "hi tech" and "hi touch" education and financial counseling services to caregivers to improve their health by adding a caregiving section to the nationally recognized http://www.olderadultnestegg.com website and providing education and one-on-one services to caregivers in southeast Michigan.
Center for Financial Safety & Health: Protecting Neurocognitive and Emotional Health in Older Adults
PI, Michigan Health Endowment Fund (2Y) / $334,000
Create an outreach center to protect the financial, cognitive and emotional health of older adults through evidence-based services, education and professional training across the seven counties of southeast Michigan.
Real World Financial Management, Decision Making and Risk of Exploitation in Cognitively Impaired Older Adults
PI, Retirement Research Foundation (2Y) / $176,000
Investigate financial management, decision-making fraud and financial exploitation through bank account analysis, the intersection of real-world financial decisions and lab-based measures, and assessing Motivational Interviewing interventions to protect older adults from exploitation.
Transferring best practices from the development of the Participant Resource Pool in Detroit to starting a new registry in Flint, MI, to enhance the recruitment of older African Americans for research projects.
PI, Michigan Health Endowment Fund (18M) / $152,000
A pilot implementation program to find the best means of including the 17-item Financial Vulnerability Survey into routine geriatric patient care, including billing and charting the results in the electronic health record.
Detecting Financial Vulnerability and Preventing Health Declines Due to Financial Exploitation
PI (with Ana Daugherty & Mark Luborsky), United Way of Southeastern Michigan (1Y) / $134,000
An expansion of the free services and information provided to older adult scam victims by adding a brain aging section to the online training, enhancing online marketing to reach a wider audience, and increasing referrals from medical partners to SAFE virtual counseling.
Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (P30)
Site PI, University of Michigan (5Y) / $100,000
Oversee all recruitment and retention of older African Americans into the Participant Registry and assist Pepper Center faculty in accessing the registry for their research.
Success after Financial Exploitation (SAFE) Program Expansion
PI, Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan (1Y) / $40,000
Create and conduct five educational workshops for caregivers: Managing Someone Else's Money, Understanding Scams, Preparing for Difficult Conversations, Detecting Early Cognitive Impairment, and How to Use the OANE Caregiver Assessment.
NOA OFEN, PI
Development of Memory Networks in Children
National Institutes of Health / National Institute on Mental Health, R01 (5Y) / $1.9M
Investigate brain activity that predicts memory formation in children with difficult to control epilepsy by analyzing data collected from electrodes implanted for their treatment.
NAFTALI RAZ, PI
Neural Correlates and Modifiers of Cognitive Aging MERIT Award
National Institutes of Health / National Institute on Aging, RO1 (5Y) / $3.6M
Research the modifiers of normal cognitive aging from a neuroscience perspective. MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) awards give a small percentage of highly qualified researchers' long-term support without the need to apply for new grant funding.
Neural Correlates and Modifiers of Cognitive Aging Supplement
National Institutes of Health, RO1 (1Y) / $121,000
A boost grant to sequence mitochondrial DNA in the primary Neural Correlates study of brain aging.
WASSIM TARRAF
Sleep in Neurocognitive Aging and Alzheimer's Research
Site PI, National Institutes of Health (with University of Miami) (5Y) / $629,000
Work with the PI to integrate longitudinal data from the parent Study of Latinos project into data collected from this sleep research, including supervising statistical analysis, data collection and quality control.
MRI Measures of Cerebrovascular Injury and AD Atrophy in the Study of Latinos
Co-I, National Institutes of Health (5Y) / $602,000
Measure vascular brain injury, cortical volume and thickness, and hippocampal volume to estimate degrees of Alzheimer's atrophy in various Latino racial admixtures.
Study of Latinos Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging
Co-I and Lead Statistician, National Institute on Aging (5Y) / $528,000
Study 6,600 Latino and Hispanic older adults to better understand the progression from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's.
Neurocognitive Aging & Alzheimer's Disease DNA Methylation in Diverse Latinos
Site PI, National Institutes of Health (5Y) / $497,000
Integrate DNA methylation into several areas of the Study of Latinos project by helping to generate data, maintain quality control and ensure sample conformity to meet the study aims.
Study of Latinos Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging 2
Site PI, National Institutes of Health (with University of California San Diego) (2Y) / $440,000
Follow-on to original Study of Latinos above
Subjective Cognitive Decline and Objective Cognitive Trajectories in Older Hispanics/Latinos
Co-I, National Institutes of Health (with University of California San Diego) (5Y) / $120,000
Supervise statistical analysis for publications, and assist in supervising data collection, quality control and data maintenance.
Sleep Apnea Phenotypes in Latinos (SLEPT)
PI, National Institutes of Health, R21 (2Y) / $89,000
Analyze sleep and neurocognitive tests from the 16,415-person Study of Latinos to determine the effect of sleep apnea on neurocognitive decline and the association with cardiovascular risk factors.