Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity (CTRA) and COVID-19: Role of Pre-existing Neighborhood Characteristics and Cognitive Impairment

Bateman et al., NOT-AG-20-022 2020PROJECT Summary: The proposed administrative supplement will fund an investigation of the impact of COVID-19 on participants ofthe Wake Forest Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC). We will determine the impact of COVID-19related social distancing and stress on individuals with cognitive impairment as compared to older adults withnormal cognition in the WF ADRC center cohort. The proposed supplement will be conducted in the ClinicalCore cohort of the ADRC at Wake Forest School of Medicine, and falls within the general scope of the ADRCof identifying factors that modulate cognitive decline in aging and Alzheimer's disease, and synergizes with ourcenter's focus on health disparities by utilizing a metric of neighborhood disadvantage. The proposal is basedon evidence that loneliness and stress are associated with cognitive decline and are expected to be moreprevalent as a result of social distancing public health measures for the prevention of COVID-19 spread.Several prior studies have shown that loneliness is associated with chronic stress in older adults, and thatloneliness is further associated with cognitive decline, with some suggestion of a bidirectional relationship.Loneliness has been shown to be affected by neighborhood variables as well. Our proposed supplement willexamine the impact of COVID-19 on loneliness and stress, and determine whether participants with pre-pandemic cognitive impairment, or those living in more deprived neighborhoods, are more vulnerable to theimpact. There are two parts to our proposed study: a telephone-based questionnaire visit and dried blood spotcollection for transcriptional analysis. We will collected two questionnaires focused on the impact of COVID-19,as well as questionnaires to assess perceived stress, loneliness, coping strategies, and psychological well-being. Each participant will be geocoded and their area deprivation index will be obtained based on publically-available data. A new collaborative relationship has been established with the UCLA Social Genomics Corewhich will perform the RNA extraction and analysis.1