Behavioral and Social Research Areas in Alzheimer's Disease

The National Institute on Aging's (NIA) Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) supports research and initiatives on the social, behavioral, and economic factors pertaining to cognitive health and Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease related dementias (AD/ADRD) at both the population and individual levels. BSR is committed to advancing high-caliber science in a variety of disciplines, including demography, lifespan development, psychology, behavioral medicine, behavioral economics, sociology, interpersonal relationships, health services research, behavioral genetics, and social epidemiology to promote the health and wellbeing of persons living with AD/ADRD and their caregivers.

Funding Opportunities
Workshops and Meetings

Research Areas

BSR supports research on a variety of topics related to AD/ADRD at multiple levels from genetics to cross-national comparative research, and at stages from basic through translational. Below are research areas that illustrate BSR's commitment to understanding AD/ADRD etiology and epidemiology, preventing age-related cognitive decline, addressing challenges associated with AD/ADRD care, developing interventions to improve the health and well-being of persons with dementia and their caregivers, and fostering data resources to the scientific research community.

To contact a BSR Program Official regarding projects related to any of these areas please send a brief email to BSR with specific aims attached.

Dementia Care

Economic aspects of care
Promoting health in persons with dementia
Challenges and burdens associated with care
Health services, systems, and settings
Measure and tool development
Basic research on potential intervention targets
Non-pharmacological intervention development
Models of care in long-term supports and services
Prevention and detection of elder mistreatment
Management of communication and decision making
Management of non-cognitive symptoms
Technology development for aging in place
Dementia care workforce

Funding Opportunities

BSR is currently accepting grant applications to several funding opportunities in different scientific domains related to AD/ADRD. The full list of BSR's active AD/ADRD funding opportunities can be found below. A list of BSR's active funding opportunities in other research areas is available.

A full list of NIA-wide active funding opportunities is available, as are NIA-wide AD/ADRD funding opportunities.

FOA Number	Title	Release Date	Expiration Date
NOT-AG-21-012	Notice of Special Interest: Integrative Studies of Neural Mechanisms Underlying Fundamental Affective Processes in Aging	10-05-2020	01-08-2024
NOT-AG-20-038	Notice of Special Interest: Sex and Gender Differences in Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias (AD/ADRD)	08-05-2020	11-13-2021
NOT-AG-20-040	Notice of Special Interest: Basic and Translational Research on Affective, Motivational, and Social Function in Normative Aging and/or Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (AD/ADRD)	08-03-2020	01-08-2022
NOT-AG-20-039	Notice of Special Interest: Fundamental and Translational Research on Decision Making in Aging and/or Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD)	07-21-2020	01-08-2022
NOT-AG-20-026	Notice of Special Interest: Dementia Care Workforce for Those Living with Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias (AD/ADRD)	05-29-2020	11-13-2021
NOT-OD-20-106	Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Development and Preliminary Testing of Health-related Behavioral Interventions	05-19-2020	09-26-2022
NOT-AG-20-031	Frequently Asked Questions for NOT-AG-20-022 Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): NIA Availability of Administrative Supplements and Revision Supplements on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)	04-21-2020	05-01-2021
NOT-AG-20-022	Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): NIA Availability of Administrative Supplements and Revision Supplements on Coronavirus Disease 2019	04-06-2020	05-01-2021
NOT-AG-20-022	Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): NIA Availability of Administrative Supplements and Revision Supplements on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)	04-02-2020	05-01-2021
PAR-20-139	Investigator Initiated Extended Clinical Trial (R01 Clinical Trial Required)	03-13-2020	01-14-2023
NOT-AG-20-017	Notice of Special Interest: Digital Technology for Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias	03-11-2020	11-13-2021
NOT-AG-20-018	Notice of Change in Application Types Allowed for PAR-19-070 Research on Current Topics in Alzheimer's Disease and Its Related Dementias (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)	03-03-2020	11-13-2021
NOT-AG-20-019	Notice of Change in Application Types Allowed for PAR-19-071 Research on Current Topics in Alzheimer's Disease and Its Related Dementias (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	03-03-2020	11-13-2021
NOT-OD-20-054	Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements to Promote Research Continuity and Retention of NIH Mentored Career Development (K) Award Recipients and Scholars	01-02-2020	03-06-2023
NOT-OD-20-048	Notice of Special Interest: Research on the Health of Women of Understudied, Underrepresented and Underreported (U3) Populations (Admin Supp Clinical Trial	12-13-2019	01-26-2021
NOT-OD-20-049	Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements for Research on Sex/Gender Influences (Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)	12-13-2019	01-26-2021
NOT-OD-20-032	Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements for Research on Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Populations (Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)	12-05-2019	01-26-2021
PAS-19-391	Small Research Grant Program for the Next Generation of Researchers in AD/ADRD Research: Area of Focus Archiving and Leveraging Existing Data Sets for Analyses (R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	10-17-2019	11-17-2022
PAS-19-392	Small Research Grant Program for the Next Generation of Researchers in AD/ADRD Research: Area of Focus Basic Science (R03 Clinical Trials Not Allowed)	10-17-2019	11-17-2022
PAS-19-393	Small Research Grant Program for the Next Generation of Researchers in AD/ADRD Research: Area of Focus Systems Biology (R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	10-17-2019	11-17-2022
PAS-19-391	Small Research Grant Program for the Next Generation of Researchers in AD/ADRD Research: Area of Focus Archiving and Leveraging Existing Data Sets for Analyses (R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	10-07-2019	11-17-2022
RFA-OD-19-029	The Intersection of Sex and Gender Influences on Health and Disease (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)	09-27-2019	11-27-2021
PAS-19-316	Advancing Research on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Alzheimer's-Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) (R43/R44 Clinical Trial Optional)	07-18-2019	09-07-2022
PAS-19-317	Advancing Research on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Alzheimer's-Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) (R41/R42 Clinical Trial Optional)	07-18-2019	09-07-2022
PAR-19-302	NIA Multi-site Clinical Trial Implementation Grant (R01 Clinical Trial Required)	06-24-2019	09-08-2022
NOT-AG-18-056	Notice to Specify High-Priority Research Topic for PAR-19-070 and PAR-19-071: Behavioral and Social Science Priority Areas in Dementia Care Research - Programs and services for persons with dementia	01-02-2019	11-13-2021
NOT-AG-18-057	Notice to Specify High-Priority Research Topic for PAR-19-070 and PAR-19-071: Behavioral and Social Science Priority Areas in Dementia Caregiver Research	01-02-2019	11-13-2021
NOT-AG-18-053	Notice to Specify High-Priority Research Topic for PAR-19-070 and PAR-19-071: Major Opportunities for Research in Epidemiology of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias and Cognitive Resilience	12-17-2018	11-13-2021
PA-19-094	Emotion Regulation, Aging and Mental Disorder (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	11-29-2018	01-08-2022
PA-19-095	Emotion Regulation, Aging and Mental Disorder (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	11-29-2018	01-08-2022
NOT-AG-18-047	Notice to Specify High-Priority Research Topic for PAR-19-070 and PAR-19-071: Health Disparities and Alzheimer's Disease	11-20-2018	11-13-2021
PAR-19-070	Research on Current Topics in Alzheimer's Disease and Its Related Dementias (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)	11-16-2018	11-13-2021
PAR-19-071	Research on Current Topics in Alzheimer's Disease and Its Related Dementias (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	11-16-2018	11-13-2021
PAR-18-877	Early Stage Clinical Trials for the Spectrum of Alzheimer's Disease and Age-related Cognitive Decline (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)	07-26-2018	09-08-2021
PAR-18-878	Late Stage Clinical Trials for the Spectrum of Alzheimers Disease and Age-related Cognitive Decline (R01 Clinical Trial Required)	07-26-2018	09-08-2021
PAR-18-519	Sensory and motor system changes as predictors of preclinical Alzheimers disease (R01 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed)	12-20-2017	11-07-2020
PA-18-347	Biobehavioral and Technological Interventions to Attenuate Cognitive Decline in Individuals with Cognitive Impairment or Dementia (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)	12-18-2017	01-08-2021
PA-18-348	Biobehavioral and Technological Interventions to Attenuate Cognitive Decline in Individuals with Cognitive Impairment or Dementia (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)	12-18-2017	01-08-2021

Workshops and Meetings

BSR has convened a variety of workshops and meetings on different topics related to AD/ADRD and cognitive decline in recent years. Please click on the meeting titles below to access a summary of each meeting as well as meeting reports and other documents.