Dom D'Agostino Pensacola Evening lecture

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is often associated with young athletes or military service, yet it is most common—and most dangerous—in older adults. After age 65, and especially after 80, even minor head impacts can lead to serious and lasting brain injury. This heightened risk reflects not only physical fragility, but a critical loss of metabolic and energetic resilience in the aging brain. In older adults, falls are the leading cause of brain injury. Fragile blood vessels, blood-thinning medications, slower protective reflexes, muscle loss, and impaired balance substantially increase risk. At the same time, aging alters how the brain produces and uses energy. Following even mild injury, the brain must rapidly restore electrical stability, control inflammation, and repair cellular damage—processes that require large amounts of energy. In younger brains, this demand is often met; in older brains, it can trigger an energy crisis that accelerates inflammation, oxidative stress, and neuronal dysfunction. As a result, what might be a brief setback at midlife can become a life-altering event later in life. This evolving understanding reframes brain injury as a problem of energy failure and reduced resilience, rather than impact alone. The lecture will highlight evidence-based strategies to protect brain health and improve recovery, including fall prevention, strength and balance training, targeted exercise, metabolic and nutritional support, and thoughtful Medic*tion management. By supporting brain energy systems and resilience, we can reduce injury risk, preserve cognitive function, and improve outcomes for aging individuals.

Dominic D’Agostino, Ph.D., is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of South Florida (USF) Morsani College of Medicine in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology. He teaches medical neuroscience, medical physiology, nutrition, and neuropharmacology. He is also a Senior Visiting Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) to assist with their efforts towards optimizing the safety, health and resilience of the warfighter and astronaut. His academic career has focused on conducting over two decades of DOD-funded research, serving on DOD and VA grant review study sections and teaching hundreds of PhD, MS, and MD students. He participated as a research scientist and crew member on NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations 22 (NEEMO 22) and continues to work closely with federal organizations (ONR, DoD, NIH, VA), private industry, and 501c3 foundations. His primary research focuses on developing and testing nutritional and metabolic-based therapies for a variety of disease states and advancing the use of metabolic-based therapies into human clinical applications.

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