Mark Gluck,Professor of Neuroscience at the Center forMolecular & Behavioral Neuroscience(CMBN) at the School of Arts & Sciences-Newark,has received a new grant from theNational Institutes of Health (NIH)to study thecognitive, neural, and immunological consequences of COVID-19 in older African Americans and how they relate to risk for Alzheimers Disease.

With this grant, Gluck seeks to investigate the links between Alzheimer's Disease and COVID-19, which share common immunological pathways and age-related risk. This is particularly critical for African Americanssince they are known be at elevated risk for age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer's Disease, andare also currently experiencing the highest overall COVID-19 mortality rates. Understanding how COVID-19 impacts cognition, neural function, and risk for Alzheimer'smay lead to new insights that inform clinically relevant future research on how age-related decline and dysfunction within the immune system may play a causal role inAlzheimer's.

The awardfrom the NIHs National Institute on Aging for $643,396 isa supplement toGluck's current NIHgrant, "Risk Factors for Future Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer's Disease in Older African Americans,"andis in addition to another supplementthe group will useto fund a minority postdoctoral fellowship. This bringstheir total 2021-2022 annual awardfrom NIHfor this project to$1,432,216.

Gluckand his labwillcollaboratewith two leadingimmunologists at the RutgersBiomedical andHealthSciences (RBHS)/NJ MedicalSchoolon this new grant,Patricia Fitzgerald-Bocarsly, Provost of NJMS/RBHS-Newark and Professor of Pathology,andMarila Gennaro, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology. The joint award will supportinterdisciplinary research acrossthethree labs -bridging neuroscience, public health, and immunology - allowing graduate students andpostdoctoralfellows from both Rutgers-Newark and RBHS to expand in newdirections.

Our goal is to find links between Alzheimers Disease and COVID-19 severity and mortality.

In describing the study, Gluck says Our core goal is to answer the following question:What underlying immunological mechanism links both Alzheimers disease and COVID-19 to common risk factors and might thus explain causal (and possibly reciprocal) links between Alzheimers Disease and COVID-19 severity and mortality?

There are numerous commonalities between Alzheimers Disease and COVID-19. Common risk factors for both include advanced age, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and being African American. Older adults with Alzheimer's, or healthy young individuals with Alzheimer's Disease risk genes, are both at elevated risk for COVID-19 mortality. What is not known is whetherthe converse is also true:Will surviving COVID-19 increase future risk for Alzheimers Disease?

Both diseases are also known to damage the same area of the brain: the hippocampus, a key structure for encoding and storing new information. This brain region has been the focus ofthe GluckLabs neurocomputational and cognitive neuroscience studies for the last three decades. What underlies these similarities between Alzheimers Disease and COVID-19?Could immune dysfunction be the common link?Although there is increasing evidence that Alzheimersinvolves disruption to the immune system,researchersdo not sufficiently understand how Alzheimers Disease pathology and risk are related to specific processes within the immune system.

African Americans continue to suffer fromhigh rates of COVID-19 mortality: About 3.6 times as high as the rate for white Americans.Older African Americans are particularly vulnerable to severe health consequences if they are exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.It is notknownwhy some older African Americans suffer far worse outcomes from COVID-19 than others, or what are the long-term health consequences of COVID-19 for African Americans. The newstudy will address both knowledge gaps.

Over the coming yearthe labwill berecruitingolderAfrican Americans from thegreaterNewark area who survived COVID-19 to join our study, in the hopes to betterunderstand the long-termconsequences of COVID-19 on brain health, immunological health, andAlzheimersDisease. A key partner in this recruitment will bethe labsnewest clinical collaborator,Dr. Alexander Salerno,the leader ofSalerno Medical Associateswhich has provided medical care to the Newark/East Orange communities since the 1950s. They also run a non-profit health education program,Urban Healthcare Initiative Program(UHIP), with whomthe Gluck lab haspartnered for several years. Their medical practice, across five local clinics, cares for about 20,000local residents, including approximately6,000 older African Americans about half of whom had COVID-19 in the past year. As an early leader in the areas response to COVID-19, they have administered COVID-19 tests to over 120,000local residents.

A deeper understanding of the linkages between Alzheimers Disease and COVID-19 may result both in better treatments for long-term neurological consequences of COVID-19 as well as advances in the field of Alzheimers Disease and related dementias. In particular,the labsstudies could lead to a better understanding of the relationship between immune dysfunction and Alzheimers Disease, which, in turn, could inform futureimmunologically-focusedclinical interventions for Alzheimers.

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Neuroscience Professor Awarded NIH Grant to Study Links Between COVID-19 and Alzheimer's - Rutgers Today