June 9, 2025
The devastating impacts of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s afflict millions of American families, and tens of millions more around the globe, in numerous ways. To help meet a variety of the challenges these diseases pose, MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative (ABI) has awarded seed grants that will launch five innovative research projects across campus.
“The Aging Brain Initiative is a collaborative effort at MIT to advance our understanding of the complexities of the aging brain and Alzheimer’s disease,” said Picower Professor Li-Huei Tsai, director of the ABI and The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and a faculty member in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS). “The ultimate mission is to deliver the foundational research that addresses the challenges of brain aging and creates a better future for millions.”
The competitively awarded seed grants, funded by $400,000 of philanthropic gifts to the ABI, provides researchers with support for a year starting July 1 to help launch their ideas.
Above: MIT faculty leading the new research projects. To row left to right: Joe Coughlin, Giovanni Traverso, Pattie Maes. Bottom row left to right: Bin Zhang, Laura Kiessling and Edward Boyden. Images from various sources including Justin Knight.
New roles for AI
Several of the winning projects involve advanced applications of artificial intelligence technology, though they each address very different problems.
After studies confirming that many older adults feel challenged by memory lapses, Pattie Maes, Germeshausen Professor of Media Technology in the Media Lab, developed a wearable, voice-powered AI assistant that seniors can use to provide personalized reminders and aid in information recall. Maes will use her ABI seed grant to further refine the technology and then test it in real-world use during a four-week study among residents at senior living facilities in the Boston area. The trial will help determine how the assistant helps, how seniors make use of it, and will enable researchers to document how memory loss challenges are manifest in real-life settings and situations.
“In-the-wild monitoring of memory capabilities can support diagnosis, early intervention and personalized care planning,” Maes said.
Meanwhile, Chemistry Associate Professor Bin Zhang plans to use AI to integrate analysis of multiple sources of molecular biology data. Emerging lab technologies have produced massive datasets from postmortem samples showing how the brain’s many different cell types each are affected by Alzheimer’s disease, including alterations in their gene expression, the accessibility of DNA for transcription, and three-dimensional DNA structure. But so far researchers have struggled to interpret these multiple sources together. Zhang will use his grant to develop a new AI-powered multimodal model to establish causal links across these data sets and reveal how the operations of genes are affected in Alzheimer’s.
“If successful, this study will not only enhance our understanding of Alzheimer’s, but also pave the way for personalized treatments and interventions tailored to specific cellular dysfunctions in aging brains,” Zhang said.
In another project, a pair of researchers from the Mechanical Engineering Department will use AI to help extract key lessons from a long-term study in Finland in which seniors have undergone a suite of lifestyle and health interventions in hopes of preventing cognitive decline. The team of Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Giovanni Traverso, Karl Van Tassel (1925) Career Development Professor, and MIT-Novo Nordisk AI Fellow Adrian Noriega de la Colina, will analyze proteins in blood samples taken from participants at various timepoints of the 11-year study to pinpoint which protein level changes might predict the course of disease and the efficacy of the interventions.
“This project aims to identify those at risk sooner and to understand who benefits most from healthy lifestyle changes that protect brain health,” the pair wrote in their application.
Promoting potential protections
Indeed, researchers and physicians believe that lifestyle factors such as education, diet, exercise and social connection can have protective effects against the onset of Alzheimer’s and other dementias. An open question, however, is how much the general public knows about these possibilities. With their ABI seed grant, a team led by Joe Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, will conduct a major national survey of U.S. adults of all ages to assess awareness. Coughlin’s team expects the findings will help inform public education efforts, recommendations for professionals from physicians to financial advisors, and help to shape public policy.
“By exploring awareness and preparedness around aging and brain health, this research aims to advance protective strategies for individuals and families navigating the cognitive implications of aging,” Coughlin’s team wrote.
At the molecular level, research has highlighted another potentially protective factor in people who have managed to remain healthy despite harboring genetic mutations that typically would predispose them to developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Their brains exhibit key differences in how certain sugars, called heparan sulfate proteoglycans, interact with proteins. To understand how these sugars affect and protect brain health, Novartis Professor of Chemistry Laura Kiessling and Y. Eva Tan Professor of Neurotechnology Ed Boyden, a member of several departments and institutes including BCS and Biological Engineering, will map changes in the sugars’ location and structure in healthy and diseased brains, determine how their protein binding changes, and test their interactions in cells to reveal how these sugars influence AD.
“Our long-term goal is to understand how natural resistance to AD works at the molecular level and to find new therapeutic strategies to delay or prevent the disease,” Boyden and Kiessling wrote.
Major support for the seed grants came from generous gifts by Kathleen CE ’77, SM ’77, PhD ‘86 and Miguel Octavio; the Kojabashian Foundation; David Emmes SM ’76; the Marc Haas Foundation; James D. Cook ’74 and Christine Cook; Shirley M. Sontheimer ’37; the Zoltan Sorell Memorial Fund; Catherine Nyarady ’93 and Gabriel Riopel ‘96; Akiko ’99 and Charles Firneno; and the family of Priscilla King Gray and former MIT President Dr. Paul E. Gray ’54, SM ’55, ScD ’60, (Virginia and Tom Army, Amy and Dave Sluyter, Andrew and Yuki Gray, Weezie and Tim Huyck, and all their Children) with additional funding from many annual fund donors to the Aging Brain Initiative Fund.
