Junior faculty member awarded $2.2 million through NIH to investigate fast-moving SuperAgers
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (10/08/2025) —Jacqueline Palmer, PT, DPT, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, has been awarded a $2.2 million New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health’s High Risk, High Reward Research program to investigate distinguishing features of brain health and longevity in older adults who defy the typical declines in advanced age.
Dr. Palmer’s study will investigate older adults ages 75+ who maintain normal cognition and walk as fast as people 30 years younger, who they have termed as “fast-moving SuperAgers.” The research team will use cutting-edge equipment to measure how these fast-moving SuperAgers adapt their brain activity during rapid, standing balance reactions in real time. They will also quantify changes in brain blood flow during neural learning involved in this process.
The research team believes these exceptional individuals provide a valuable model for studying brain resilience to pathology and disease mechanisms that afflict the majority of people in advanced age. By understanding how their brains maintain function, they can identify targets for preventing decline and disability in other people.
“Most aging research focuses on disease and decline, but in this study, we are flipping the script by examining what makes some brains exceptionally resilient to aging processes,” said Dr. Palmer, who is in the Division of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science. “We believe that these fast-moving SuperAgers may possess a greater capacity for neuroplasticity, or brain “rewiring,” that provides resilience to aging pathology and decline that we see in most people their age.”
Minnesota's unusually robust population of healthy, active older adults, combined with the University of Minnesota's advanced research infrastructure, provides a unique environment for execution of this study. The findings will inform targeted treatments and preventative interventions to maintain cognitive and physical function throughout aging.
The New Innovator Award, established in 2007, supports unusually innovative research from early career investigators who are within 10 years of their final degree or clinical residency and have not yet received a large independent NIH grant.
The study expects to begin recruiting participants in January 2026.
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