With the aid of an $18.2 million, five-year grant renewal from the National Institute on Aging, the Vanderbilt Memory and Aging Project (VMAP) will advance interdisciplinary research into abnormal brain aging and cognitive decline in older adults, with continuing emphasis on the role of blood flow changes in the heart and brain.

Growing evidence suggests modest age-related changes in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health, which might not typically be seen by clinicians as a warning sign, can be precursors of cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

“For decades,...