Cognitive Ageing in Healthy Adults in India: A Cross-Sectional Multimodal Study Protocol

Introduction The population of older adults in India is projected to exceed 230 million within the next decade. With increasing life expectancy, maintaining cognitive and neurobiological health becomes essential for ensuring a good quality of life. This study is a comprehensive multimodal investigation of aging and cognition in a healthy Indian cohort. The aim is to characterize cognitive, neurobiological, physiological, psychological, and molecular trajectories and their associations across the adult lifespan in India. Methods and Analysis Data will be collected cross-sectionally from healthy young (19 to 35 years, n = 100), middle-aged (40 to 55 years, n = 100), and older adults (60 to 75 years, n = 100) with regional nativity and residence in Telangana or Andhra Pradesh. Individuals with cognitive impairment or any chronic health condition will be excluded. Assessments will include standardized cognitive tests, mental health questionnaires, brain imaging, heart rate variability, and serum samples for standard blood tests and epigenetic analyses. Hair cortisol and serum inflammatory markers will also be collected to profile stress and systemic inflammation, respectively. Data from this study will help to profile healthy aging in an Indian cohort, thereby addressing critical gaps in clinical research and health policy. Ethics and Dissemination This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at IIIT Hyderabad (IIITH-IRB-PRO-2023-11). All participants will give written consent. Results from this study will be presented at conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals. Data will also be curated for an interactive web-portal to enable researchers, clinicians, and policy makers to understand the data in meaningful ways.