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.

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
Caregiver Research
  • Demography of caregiving
  • Economic aspects of caregiving
  • Promoting health in caregivers
  • Challenges and burdens associated with caregiving
  • Measure and tool development
  • Basic research on potential intervention targets
  • Non-pharmacological intervention development
  • Prevention and detection of elder mistreatment
  • Management of communication and decision making
Cognitive and Dementia Epidemiology
  • Prevalence
  • Incidence
  • National estimates of burden of illness
  • Cross-national comparisons
  • Trajectories of cognitive aging and decline
Behavioral and Social Pathways
  • Behavioral and social risk and protective factors
  • Basic behavioral, social, and biobehavioral research on causal pathways to cognitive decline and AD/ADRD
  • Basic research on malleable mechanistic targets on behavioral and social pathways
Early Psychological Changes
  • Early detection of cognitive decline
  • Mobile monitoring or passive detection of cognitive change
  • Non-cognitive psychological processes—including affective function, motivation, social function, and decision making—in AD/ADRD and their neurobiological, genetic, and physiological underpinnings
  • Life-course longitudinal studies of age-related change in psychological processes
Prevention
  • Non-pharmacological interventions to prevent, remediate, or delay age-related cognitive decline and AD/ADRD
  • Interventions on behavioral risk factors
  • Cognitive training
Disparities
  • Disparities in health care access or health outcomes in any of the other portfolio categories based on factors including, but not limited to, race/ethnicity, gender, geographic location, and socioeconomic status
Research Resources
  • Centers and research networks
  • Professional and career development
  • Data repositories, infrastructure, bioinformatics

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
PAR-21-099 Music and Health: Understanding And Developing Music Medicine (R21 Clinical Trial Optional) 12/23/2020 2/17/2023
PAR-21-100 Music and Health: Understanding And Developing Music Medicine (R01 Clinical Trial Optional) 12/23/2020 2/6/2023
NOT-OD-21-011 Notice of NIH Participation in Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science 11/24/2020 11/10/2022
NOT-AG-21-012 Notice of Special Interest: Integrative Studies of Neural Mechanisms Underlying Fundamental Affective Processes in Aging 10/5/2020 1/8/2024
NOT-AG-20-038 Notice of Special Interest: Sex and Gender Differences in Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) 8/5/2020 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) 8/3/2020 1/8/2022
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) 7/21/2020 1/8/2022
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) 5/29/2020 11/13/2021
NOT-OD-20-106 Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Development and Preliminary Testing of Health-related Behavioral Interventions 5/19/2020 9/26/2022
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) 4/21/2020 5/1/2021
PAR-20-139 Investigator Initiated Extended Clinical Trial (R01 Clinical Trial Required) 3/13/2020 1/14/2023
NOT-AG-20-017 Notice of Special Interest: Digital Technology for Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias 3/11/2020 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) 3/3/2020 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) 3/3/2020 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 1/2/2020 3/6/2023
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 1/26/2021
NOT-OD-20-049 Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements for Research on Sex/Gender Influences (Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional) 12/13/2019 1/26/2021
NOT-OD-20-032 Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements for Research on Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Populations (Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional) 12/5/2019 1/26/2021
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) 10/7/2019 11/17/2022
RFA-OD-19-029 The Intersection of Sex and Gender Influences on Health and Disease (R01 Clinical Trial Optional) 9/27/2019 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) 7/18/2019 9/7/2022
PAS-19-317 Advancing Research on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Alzheimer's-Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) (R41/R42 Clinical Trial Optional) 7/18/2019 9/7/2022
PAR-19-302 NIA Multi-site Clinical Trial Implementation Grant (R01 Clinical Trial Required) 6/24/2019 9/8/2022
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 1/2/2019 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 1/2/2019 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 1/8/2022
PA-19-095 Emotion Regulation, Aging and Mental Disorder (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) 11/29/2018 1/8/2022
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 11/29/2018 11/13/2021
PAR-19-070 Research on Current Topics in Alzheimer's Disease and Its Related Dementias (R01 Clinical Trial Optional) 11/29/2018 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) 7/26/2018 9/8/2021
PAR-18-878 Late Stage Clinical Trials for the Spectrum of Alzheimers Disease and Age-related Cognitive Decline (R01 Clinical Trial Required) 7/26/2018 9/8/2021

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.

Summit Virtual Meeting Series: 2020 National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers

July 10, July 21, and August 13, 2020

Decadal Survey of Behavioral and Social Science Research on Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease-Related Dementia

August 14-15, October 17, 2019 and July 7-8, 2020

Incorporating the Experimental Medicine Approach in the Development of Primary Prevention Trials for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Workshop

October 10-11, 2019

Gaps in the Dementia Care Workforce: Research Update and Data Needs

May 23, 2019

Improving Patient Outcomes through Effective Caregiver-Clinician Communication and Relationships Expert Meeting

May 17-18, 2018

State of the Science for Pragmatic Trials of Non-Pharmacological Interventions to Improve Outcomes Among Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers

December 1, 2017

Cost-Effective Early Detection of Cognitive Decline

October 25, 2017

Innovating the Next Generation of Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease Care Interventions: Addressing the Needs of Persons Living with Dementia, Caregivers, and Care Providers

July 31, 2017 - August 01, 2017

Understanding Pathways to Successful Aging: Behavioral and Social Factors Related to Alzheimer's Disease

June 12-13, 2017

The Effect of Education on Recent Dementia Trends: A Look Forward

September 14, 2016

The Costs Associated with Alzheimer's Disease (AD)

October 26, 2011

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