Published
March 11, 2025
Geriatrician Dr. Heather Whitson says the future of research on the aging brain offers hope for a better quality of life for seniors, not just in warding off dementia but also strengthening the body’s overall health.
“For me, the true north is to help people maintain function, independence, quality of life and resilience,” she said.
Whitson is Duke School of Medicine Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience, the director of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, and the co-director of the Duke-UNC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. Duke’s aging center has been funded since 1955, making it the longest continually funded aging center in the country; in 2021, Duke became a federally funded Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease Research.
“One of our big themes is neuroscience,” Whitson said. “We’re thinking about protecting the brain and understanding what exposures and events across the lifespan are impacting the aging brain — for example, brain trauma or stroke, chronic inflammation, toxic exposures.
“Issues that we used to think of as ‘below the neck,’ we now understand have brain consequences as well: metabolic and cardiovascular disease, the gut microbiome, infection, menopause,” she added. “We’re looking for opportunities to treat Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias before the disease is obvious. By the time a person is having trouble with thinking or memory, there have been changes happening in the brain for at least a decade.
“We are also thinking about resilience. Aging research has often focused on negative things like disability and frailty, and now we’re moving toward understanding the opportunities to help people bounce back after health stressors or other life stressors. Our tools are better than ever to be able to understand that resilience — both molecular and cellular tools and also data tools such as machine learning and bioinformatics to handle complex data.
“A third area we’re excited about is reimagining the health system for older patients. They need sustained outpatient management, support with decision-making, lots of communication, attention to goals of care, and coordination. The current system does not lend itself to that. Re-engineering the health system is going to take health care providers, economists, and people who think like industrial engineers.”
In addition to National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for the Duke-UNC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Whitson’s own research is supported by numerous NIH grants for the study of conditions including sensory impairments, arthritis and delirium.