The Alzheimer’s Association, Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) and CurePSP are partnering together on this unique funding program to advance an understanding of the role sleep plays in neurodegeneration, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body diseases and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. This funding call will focus on projects aimed to advance our understanding of the impact that sleep and related biology (including circadian rhythms) have as both a contributor to and a consequence of neurodegeneration. Projects funded through this program will aim to tackle the proposed question with a multidisciplinary team and projects that engage in team science approaches will be given preference.

Program overview

Although Alzheimer’s and dementia research has made many advances in recent years, the field still faces gaps in our knowledge and ability to translate basic science discoveries into treatments and evidence-based clinical practices for dementia care, across all underlying biology and patient symptoms. Some of these overarching questions focus on understanding of disease causes, need for models and other tools to evaluate disease biology, early and accurate detection and diagnosis procedures and diverse treatment modalities.

Many individuals with diseases that cause dementia or other neurodegenerative outcomes experience sleep disturbances as the disease progresses or have a history of sleep-related issues in their medical histories. Sleep is a complex physiological process that supports numerous basic survival mechanisms, including metabolism and immune system. Sleep also is central to regulating neuroplasticity, memory consolidation, learning and may also be a key mechanism for clearance mechanisms critical for healthy brain function. Sleep is also governed by the circadian clock which may be altered in people living with neurodegenerative disorders.

In 2022, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAESM), through the Forum of Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders convened a workshop focused on sleep and its impact on the central nervous system. Through these two days, there was an emphasis on what is known as well as what is not known. One of the key themes was the synergy of mechanisms across neurodegenerative disorders and the opportunity to leverage studies in this area to better understand the contributions of sleep to neurodegenerative disorders.

To that end, the three partner organizations have come together to frame this funding opportunity to address these opportunities to accelerate our understanding of sleep. The Sleep Contributions to Neurodegeneration (SCN) Grant Program solicits projects that aim to address some of the key challenges across neurodegeneration research today as related to sleep and related biology contributions, including a goal of increasing understanding of the biological basis of sleep impairment and sleep signatures across and within neurodegenerative diseases, including contributions to progression, risk and clinical symptoms. Proposed projects must incorporate:

Systems or wholistic approach of the impact of sleep on neurodegenerative diseases from onset to progression, bringing together the threads of research that touch on sleep related issues.

Incorporate considerations of co-pathologies and/or comorbidities in the context of sleep related impairment and/or contributions to progression.

Incorporation of tools for deeper measures of sleep-related impact with passive tools of data collection; this can include “adjacent” physiology (heart rate, body temperature, etc.).

Incorporation of sleep related biology measures in the context of other ongoing studies; studies that aim to add sleep related measures would be applicable and/or studies that aim to data mine existing data across data sets are of interest. Successful proposals will take into consideration multidisciplinary and multi-organizational approaches to address these challenging questions

Funding and award period

The maximum grant amount is $500,000 for the duration of the funding; with anticipated funding ranges to be $200,000 to $500,000 depending on the project scope. Budget spending should appropriately align to the specific aims and proposed milestones of the project. 10% indirect costs are allowable for this funding program. The maximum project duration is 2 years, and there is no minimum timeframe. The funding partners anticipated funding 4-6 projects, depending on the budget size requested and approved through the SCN Grant Program.

Full Program Details can be found at alz.org/grants

Program Key Dates

• Letter of Intent Launch: December 11, 2024 - Must be submitted online at http://proposalcentral.com
• Letter of Intent Deadline: January 29, 2025, 5:00 PM ET
• Letter of Intent Notifications: Week of March 17, 2025
• Application Deadline (if invited to submit a full application): May 14, 2025, 5:00 PM ET
• Application Review: May - June, 2025
• Award Notifications: By August 30, 2025

For more information and eligibility requirements visit: alz.org/grants

To inquire about eligibility, you can contact a member of the Alzheimer's Association Grants staff at grantsapp@alz.org