Annual Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) symposium on aging, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease

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Project Summary/Abstract Nearly 6 million U.S. adults are currently living with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and 700,000 of these people will die in 2019 alone. There is no simple solution for prevention, early detection, or cure. Since 1994, the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study has collected observational, clinical, and laboratory data on more than 5,500 older adults and is following them over time for signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. ACT data contribute to a living, learning laboratory, which serves as a scientific resource for the research community. For the past seven years, we have held an annual ACT symposium to showcase new ACT resources, highlight innovative research findings, share new grant ideas, and promote cross-disciplinary collaborations. Every year we have received higher ratings on our post-symposium evaluations, with 98% of last year’s attendees indicating they would recommend the symposium to others and 100% indicating they would attend a future ACT symposium. However, we do not have the capacity to hold future symposia without conference grant funding. This conference grant will provide support to continue and grow the ACT symposia over the next five years. The specific objectives of our conference grant are to: 1) promote scientific use and understanding of ACT data; 2) promote collaborations across scientific disciplines, institutions, and studies; and 3) provide opportunities for feedback on ongoing and planned work such as analyses-in-progress or new grant ideas, particularly for junior investigators. This funding will allow us to host the symposium in a large, accessible venue with advanced audiovisual equipment. It also will provide travel stipends for junior researchers, investigators from underrepresented minority groups, and researchers traveling from out of town so that we may extend our reach to new external investigators. Future conferences will cover critical topics in aging and dementia research such as resilience, imaging, dementia subtypes, molecular phenotypes, traumatic brain injury, and others. Long term, continuing and expanding the ACT symposia will increase use of the ACT living laboratory and provide a creative, welcoming space for top investigators to exchange innovative research ideas and accelerate AD and brain aging research.