The University of Texas at Austin boasts some of the top scholars exploring dementia-related subjects. These include social conditions that support brain health, neurological aspects that contribute to brain-cell resilience or decline, and technology that helps people live independently as they age. More than 100 researchers at UT engage in the study of aging, working across disciplines to tackle one of society’s most pressing health challenges.
For example, the National Institutes of Health recently renewed a grant for UT’s Center on Aging and Population Sciences. The UT center is one of only 15 federally designated centers for research into the demographics and economics of aging and earned a perfect score of 10 from reviewers of the center’s grant application.
The perfect score, which is “pretty much underheard of,” speaks to the strength of UT’s research into aging, said Karen Fingerman, Sonia Wilson Professor of Human Ecology and professor of human development and family sciences in the College of Natural Sciences, and director of the Texas Aging and Longevity Consortium.
Below are some examples of the strength and breadth of UT research related to aging and dementia.
Exploring Tech’s Effects on Cognitive Ability
Jared Benge, an associate professor of neurology at Dell Medical School and UT Health Austin’s Comprehensive Memory Center, might be more familiar with today’s technology than many digital natives are.
Much of Benge’s research at UT deals with cognitive functioning in a digital world. For instance, Benge co-authored a study published this year by Nature Human Behaviour that concluded the use of digital devices might help shield someone from dementia and cognitive decline.
The meta-analysis looked at data from more than 411,000 people in the 50-and-over age group. The analysis indicated that using a computer, a smartphone and the internet can improve brain health, regardless of a person’s education, income or physical health.
Among other projects, Benge is looking into smartphone calendars vs. paper calendars in support of memory, digital biomarkers for Alzheimer’s and related dementia disorders, and electronic signals of brain activity in adults with mild cognitive decline.
“I’m particularly interested in how we can leverage technologies to both identify cognitive problems and help treat real problems in the real world,” Benge said.
It is important to study learning and memory because research in this area may reveal how we can harness the power of learning to overcome predispositions for certain behaviors.
Delving Into Our Brains and Our Memory
Laura Colgin, professor of neuroscience in the College of Natural Sciences and director of the Center for Learning and Memory, seeks to unearth discoveries regarding how neurons, or nerve cells, carry out memory functions, especially in the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex.
The hippocampus is the brain’s learning and memory center. The entorhinal cortex is a region of the brain that plays a key role in forming memories; moving from one place to another (spatial navigation); and learning, storing and using information connected to geography (cognitive mapping).
The lab’s studies aim to deliver unique insights into brain disorders, including Alzheimer’s.
For instance, Colgin and her colleagues have uncovered insights into how groups of neurons in the hippocampus can store strong memories of salient experiences. Salient experiences are significant or emotional events such as a wedding, a car crash, the birth of a child or a major promotion at work.
“It is important to study learning and memory because research in this area may reveal how we can harness the power of learning to overcome predispositions for certain behaviors,” Colgin said. “Also, our memories define us in so many ways and bring meaning to our lives. Losing one’s memories and the ability to learn new things, as occurs with diseases like Alzheimer’s, can have a profoundly devastating impact on quality of life.”
Taking On One of the Greatest Fears of Aging Americans
Our mood, our sleep habits and our aging process influence how we live, including how much cognitive decline we experience over time and what our dementia-related risks are. It’s the goal of Audrey Duarte, psychology professor and associate chair for academic affairs at the College of Liberal Arts, and trainees in her Memory and Aging Lab to scrutinize how our memory and our brains change in tandem with depression, poor sleep and age.
Research conducted at the lab may help us better prepare for the continued graying of America.
By 2030, Americans 65 and older are expected to make up more than 20% of the U.S. population, up from 18.6% in 2025, according to S&P Global. During this five-year period, Texas is projected to be the state with the biggest increase in its 65-and-over population — from more than 4.5 million people in 2025 to nearly 5.4 million in 2030.
This population shift carries significant financial and societal implications that weigh on the minds of many Americans. A 2024 survey by Parade and the Cleveland Clinic showed 69% of U.S. adults think at least once a year about their risk of developing issues with brain health, such as Alzheimer’s or other dementia disorders.
“One of the biggest fears that people have as they get older is developing Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of dementia,” Duarte said. “So, it’s really important to better understand what ‘normal aging’ looks like. We don’t fully understand it, but if we can better understand it, we can better understand what a person’s likely outcomes are and advise them on what we think would be the best, personalized interventions to live well, longer.”
By studying people who are at the cusp of later life, we are seeing people who have very strong signs of resilience.
Embracing a Little Detective Work to Learn About Aging
Researchers at Fingerman’s Older Adult Well-Being Lab (OWL) are like private detectives. They employ sensor devices on smartphones and smartwatches to track the day-to-day activities of older adults — sleeping, watching TV, chatting and more.
This electronic sleuthing happens in the name of examining ties between social relationships and later-in-life health. Studies have shown a diverse social network — the personal kind, not the digital kind — can lead to good physical, cognitive and emotional well-being as we age. Fingerman and her team want to shed light on why that’s the case.
Branching out from its main line of research, the lab is studying caregivers of family members who have Lewy body dementia, one of the most prevalent forms of dementia.
Fingerman relishes witnessing the myriad new research discoveries stemming from the study of aging — a field that’s much more pertinent today than it was decades ago.
“I tell my students that it is the equivalent of nuclear physics. It didn’t really exist until after World War II,” she said. “We’ve always had older people, but the fact that you expect to live into your 80s — you’re planning for retirement — makes you really have an expectation that after age 65, you’re going to have many years left…There wouldn’t be 401(k) plans if we didn’t all expect that.”
Getting Schooled on the Ties Between Education and Brain Health
Much of Chandra Muller’s research at UT focuses on the connection between feeding your brain and keeping your brain healthy. Muller, a sociology professor who holds the Alma Cowden Madden Centennial and Ashbel Smith professorships, is a principal investigator for the Education Studies for Health Aging Research (EdSHARe) project, which is backed by nearly $78.7 million in federal funding from the National Institute on Aging.
The interdisciplinary project involves several UT researchers and comprises two long-term studies of education’s role in cognitive functioning. Already, one of the EdSHARe studies has generated data showing that academic and socioeconomic factors in high school foreshadow cognitive performance in midlife.
What you learn — or don’t learn — in school may create ripple effects that affect your brain health decades down the road, Muller says. Yet not everyone has access to rigorous top-notch schooling. As a result, someone who was fortunate enough to obtain a high-quality education may be in better shape in terms of brain health than someone who obtained a lower-quality education.
“Schools give students opportunities to develop skills, to learn how to learn, to solve problems and to think abstractly,” Muller said. “Their academic performance — notably their test scores, their grades and the courses they take — predict their cognitive functioning and physical health decades after they finish school, even if they don’t go to college.”
Healthy cognitive functioning means we can clearly think, learn and remember. Significant cognitive decline is a sign of Alzheimer’s and other dementia-related disorders, while a smaller degree of cognitive decline is a normal part of aging.
“Dementia develops over a much longer period than people realize,” she said. “What happens in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood can set the stage for dementia risk decades later.
The protective effects of education appear to extend beyond how many years of education people get or what degrees they earn. The quality of education and what people get out of it in terms of skills and abilities to learn and adapt to new challenges matters at least as much.”
Muller is also interested in determining how education might help people become more resilient as they grow older. Findings from this sort of study could benefit people who are at risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementia disorders.
“By studying people who are at the cusp of later life — the point immediately preceding the age when we observe an uptick in the risk of dementia — we are seeing people who have very strong signs of resilience, in terms of their physical health and what their bodies can do, their cognitive functioning, their engagement in civic society and social relationships,” Muller said. “And even biologically in markers that suggest protective processes against neurodegeneration.”
