As health advances allow people to live longer, healthy aging has become an urgent frontier for research. The burden of age-related cognitive impairment—whether from Alzheimer’s Disease, vascular dysfunction, or other causes—is growing exponentially. To accelerate collaborative brain-aging research, The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association are committing $43 million with additional partners to co-fund a new research initiative with the goal of shedding new light on how to better prevent, detect, and treat age-related cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer’s disease.

More than 5.7 million Americans currently live with a diagnosis of one of the most common forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and that number is expected to nearly triple by 2050.

“Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other cognitive ailments have become an enormous emotional and economic burden for our society,” says Tom Skalak, PhD, Executive Director of The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. “This new American Heart Association-Allen initiative will create new bridges and collaborations between researchers and physicians, ultimately leading to better understanding and treatment of these cognitive disorders.”

At this time, research has identified many of the symptoms and manifestations of Alzheimer’s in the brain, but not the underlying causes that could lead to prevention, diagnosis, or treatment. The current rigid distinction placed between cerebrovascular diseases—such as stroke—and neurodegenerative diseases—like Alzheimer’s disease, both once considered mutually exclusive conditions, made it more difficult to understand and mitigate these disorders.

The American Heart Association and the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group (Frontiers Group) have come together to bridge a historical divide in the scientific and medical communities between those who focus on cognitive vs vascular issues.

The Association and the Frontiers Group, together with additional contributors, including the Oskar Fischer Project, have committed $43 million to disrupt the incremental trajectory of brain health science and open new frontiers of discovery that will improve and lengthen lives through the American Heart Association/Allen initiative in brain health and cognitive impairment. This initiative will identify and fund highly promising teams of bioscience investigators pursuing creative, transformative ideas to move brain health and cognitive impairment science forward with greater speed.

“Bridging vascular and brain science through innovative research will help scientists shed new light on the causes or contributors to cognitive impairment and dementia,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association. “The American Heart Association/Allen initiative in brain health and cognitive impairment represents a major step forward to better understand how our brains age and is part of the Association’s ongoing commitment to understand how vascular health impacts brain health and overall well-being.”

The deadline for proposals is July 6, 2018. For more details on the initiative and the application process, visit professional.heart.org/CognitiveResearch.