The University of California, Los Angeles has announced a $2 million gift from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for neurology research.

To be administered by the department of neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Research Support Fund will support efforts to develop treatments tailored and optimized to individual patient's neurodegenerative disability. With support from the fund, researchers will study genes in regions of the brain aligned with specific disabilities, identify disability-specific treatment targets, and apply their findings to the cognitive, walking, and visual disabilities associated with multiple sclerosis and the cognitive decline associated with brain aging in healthy people, as well as those diagnosed with the mild cognitive impairment that precedes Alzheimer's. Researchers also will explore how the loss of estrogen and progesterone in women during menopause and of testosterone in men during andropause affects those brain regions and will work to develop treatments to prevent cognitive decline.

"This fund honors the commitment my father, Barron Hilton, made to ongoing research after seeing my mother, Marilyn, live with multiple sclerosis for many years," said Hilton Foundation board chair Hawley Hilton McAuliffe. "We hope for a time when no other family will have to watch their loved ones live with the same disease and are honored to support the important work Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl and her team at UCLA are performing in search of a cure."

(Photo credit: Conrad N. Hilton Foundation)