In the wake of last week’s presidential debate between the 78- and 81-year old candidates – and the impression among some that President Joe Biden looked “old and frail”, with at least one public call for cognitive testing – much of America has had age on the brain.

Most research on aging and memory focuses on the other side of the equation – people who develop dementia in their later years. But, “if we’re constantly talking about what’s going wrong in aging, it’s not capturing the full spectrum of what’s happening in the older adult population,” said Emily Rogalski, a professor of neurology at the Univeristy of Chicago, who published one of the first studies on super-agers in 2012.

After countless well-intentioned, but long-forgotten, New Year’s resolutions to improve our daily habits, many of us are still looking for the secret to a long, fulfilling life. Keeping our brains healthy and functioning as we age is at the top of the list.

Emily Rogalski, PhD, the Rosalind Franklin PhD Professor of Neurology at the University of Chicago, is one of two multiple principal investigators (MPIs) awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance the Communication Bridge Research Program for primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

Headed by leading neuroscientist Emily Rogalski, PhD, the new University of Chicago Healthy Aging & Alzheimer’s Research Care (HAARC) Center will focus on building deep multidisciplinary expertise and bridging the gap between scientific disciplines to accelerate breakthroughs in cognitive resilience.