Preventing and Treating Dementia: Research Priorities to Accelerate Progress (2025)
Chapter: Abstract
Abstract
Accelerating the development of effective strategies for preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) is crucial to address the profound and growing public health crisis posed by dementia and to provide hope to millions of people at risk and those afflicted worldwide. In the last decade, spurred by the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has invested billions of dollars to support research on detecting, understanding, and developing interventions to prevent or treat AD/ADRD. These investments have led to many scientific advances, including the first treatments to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in some individuals, creating a foundation of knowledge to guide future research and interventions. However, the pace of progress has not matched the growing urgency for interventions that can prevent or cure AD/ADRD and reduce the emotional and financial toll on individuals, families, and communities.
The Committee on Research Priorities for Preventing and Treating Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias, convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, reviewed the research landscape and identified 11 scientific priorities with the potential to catalyze breakthroughs in the near and midterm that should be a focus of NIH-funded AD/ADRD research for the next 3 to 10 years (Recommendation 1). These research priorities, which are applicable across all causes of dementia and advance the committee’s broader goal of optimizing brain health across the life course, fall into the following three broad areas:
- Quantify brain health across the life course and accurately predict risk of, screen for, diagnose, and monitor AD/ADRD.
- Build a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of the disease biology and mechanistic pathways that contribute to AD/ADRD development and resilience over the life course.
- Catalyze advances in interventions for the prevention and treatment of AD/ADRD spanning from precision medicine to public health strategies.
The committee also developed recommendations to NIH and others in the AD/ADRD research ecosystem aimed at overcoming barriers to progress on the research priorities. The recommendations highlight investments and actions needed to maximize the knowledge generated from longitudinal research and accelerate clinical research (Recommendations 2 and 3). Other recommendations focus on breaking down silos to enable multidisciplinary, multisector, and collaborative research efforts (Recommendation 4) and fostering inclusive research practices that increase the accessibility and generalizability of AD/ADRD research (Recommendations 5 and 6). The recommendations also address the need to enhance the accessibility and usability of biological samples, data, and knowledge (Recommendations 7, 8, and 9). Finally, the committee suggests opportunities for NIH to promote innovation in AD/ADRD research to achieve transformational change (Recommendation 10).
Addressing the research priorities and recommendations will require sustained and dedicated resources and needs to be guided at all stages by those with lived experience to ensure synergy between scientific priorities and the priorities of those directly affected by dementia. Through the collaborative efforts of NIH, academic researchers, private industry, health care professionals, funders, policy makers, advocates, and people living with AD/ADRD, it is possible to envision a future where dementia is a preventable and treatable condition.
