Research Network on Decision Neuroscience and Aging

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PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT The overall goal of this grant is to continue supporting the multidisciplinary Scientific Research Network on Decision Neuroscience and Aging. The integrative emerging area that this grant will support combines the strengths of several fields including psychology, neuroscience/neurology, medicine and economics to facilitate rapid scientific progress and directly contribute to the development of effective interventions and policies to improve health and well being across the life span and reduce the burden of Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias (ADRD). After ten years of establishing this network, the next five years will be focused on strengthening the link between basic research on decision making and aging and clinical research on decision making and ADRD. This will involve growing the network participation to include emerging scientists interested in ADRD as well as expanding our advisory board to include ADRD experts. Over five years this network grant will support scientific meetings, intensive training workshops for researchers at all stages, collaboration and mentorship initiatives, and pilot grant competitions for researchers new to the field. These activities will directly support the growth, development, and sustainability of the decision neuroscience of aging. This grant will support growth of the network through dissemination activities. Scientific meetings will increase awareness of the latest findings with the goal of drawing new researchers into the area and encouraging new collaborations. A small grant competition will encourage scientists to join the area and will stimulate new research through small scale pilots. This network grant will support development of the area through methods workshops and an outside mentorship program. Short, intensive workshops will focus on training researchers at all stages in the collection and analysis of various emerging behavioral and biological measures and introduce investigators to new research areas to expand the scope of their own work and build new collaboration opportunities (e.g., clinical ADRD science for decision making researchers; decision neuroscience for clinicians). The development of these skills is currently difficult to achieve in traditional single discipline training programs, but will be essential for taking advantage of the growing number of large multivariate and multi-level integrative datasets generated by this type of research, especially prevalent in ADRD research. The network will focus on investing in the sustainability of this field by ensuring that students, fellows, and faculty are invited to participate in all activities. Workshops, meetings, small pilot grants, and collaboration initiatives will facilitate the transition from the current growing group of individuals managing network activities to a strong field of researchers leading future work in this area. After completion of activities, this emerging area will be in better position for network members to pursue funding to support the network in the future using more traditional mechanisms.