International Healthy Aging Network

The International Healthy Aging Network (iHAN) is part of the IARU ALH initiative. Researchers of iHAN collaborate on the study of molecular and cognitive biomarkers of healthy aging and age-related diseases, including Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, using in vivo methods of neuroimaging, particularly positron emission tomography (PET).

Research Focus

Research at iHAN is based upon three fundamental hypotheses, each of which relates to the substantial variation in overall energy consumption in the brain:

That partial uncoupling of mitochondrial function and the resulting differences in individual energy production result in significant inter-individual differences in RONS (reactive oxygen and nitrogen species), damage and repair processes and that these differences contribute directly to variations in aging.
That there is a direct relationship between inter-individual differences in brain energy utilization, brain morphology and/or activity.
That there is a direct relationship between energy consumption in the brain and the aging process that can be established by aligning population-based observation of aging processes with measures associated with brain energy consumption.

iHAN Committee

The iHAN organization committee formally met for the first time in 2009 to initiate collaboration between researchers in Denmark, Singapore and Australia, which expanded to include researchers from other universities. The Network meets 4 times a year, often in groups of the individual nodes.

Researchers of iHAN include members from:

University of California, Berkeley, US
Yale University, US
Johns Hopkins University, US
University of Queensland, Australia
Universiteit van Stellenbosch, South Africa
McGill University, Canada
University of British Columbia, Canada
Aarhus University, Denmark
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
University of Oslo, Norway

In 2015, the researchers of iHAN created three affiliated nodes, including:

Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, St. Kitts, West Indies
Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Uganda National Research Health Organization, UNRHO, Uganda

Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and Tabriz University of Medical Sciences are affiliated with the University of Copenhagen and UNRHO is affiliated with the University of Oslo.