Research

Supporting research to better understand cognitive aging and uncover treatments for cognitive decline and memory loss

The McKnight Brain Research Foundation has funded more than $180 million in research specifically targeting cognitive aging and age-related cognitive decline and memory loss through direct contributions and strategic initiatives in partnership with the four McKnight Brain Institutes and the National Institute on Aging through the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Through the research we support, we are committed to making a significant impact in the lives of patients experiencing cognitive changes due to aging by supporting the investigators working to better understand and prevent these changes from occurring.

In our first 20 years, we’ve hosted three cognitive aging summits and established the four McKnight Brain Institutes at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Arizona, University of Florida and University of Miami to establish the topic of brain aging in our national dialogue, while bringing together research on the topic of alleviating and preventing age-related cognitive decline and memory loss.

As part of our commitment to improving quality of life by advancing the understanding and alleviation of age-related cognitive decline and memory loss, we also fund Pilot Grants across the four McKnight Brain Institutes to initiate promising new medical research projects exploring the brain.

We’re proud to have supported the three-year Collaboratory on Research Definitions for Reserve & Resilience in Cognitive Aging and Dementia

The Collaboratory was established in 2019 to develop operational definitions, research guidelines and data sharing platforms for cognitive reserve and related concepts. The Collaboratory concluded in 2021 by releasing the Framework for Terms Used in Research of Reserve and Resilience, which incorporates formal definitions and operational research definitions for the terms: cognitive reserve, brain maintenance and brain reserve.

We encourage you to explore the research highlights below and challenge you to think of how we can continue improving our understanding of age-related cognitive decline to delay or prevent brain aging and the normal decline in thinking, problem-solving and memory skills it currently causes for millions of older adults.