Hickey, Emily Jean PHD

The goal of this Administrative Supplement is to expand on the parent R01AG70028 “Lifestyle Risk and Resiliency Factors and Alzheimer’s Disease in Down syndrome” project by examining the effect of adverse childhood events (e.g., parent divorce, abuse/neglect, poverty) and recent life stressors (e.g., job termination, new staff, death of family member) on the timing of Alzheimer’s disease pathology and symptomology in people with Down syndrome. To accomplish this goal, the current project will include a new measure into the Lifestyle R01 protocol to capture adverse childhood experiences (ACEs); 2) use a new coding technique to capture stressful life events in adulthood; and 3) conduct new analyses to determine the association between stressful childhood and adult life experiences and Alzheimer’s disease imaging and biofluid biomarkers and cognitive performance measures. These analyses will investigate the direct effect of stressful life experiences on biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive impairments and the indirect effects through inflammation (e.g., plasma IL-6) and co-occurring health conditions (e.g., obesity, depression, cardiovascular disease, and disordered sleep).