UW Medicine’s Post

👏 👏 👏 UW Medicine 👏 👏 👏 🐉 Myth: cognitive decline and physical decline are normal parts of aging everyone will start to see somewhere after midlife (age 40-60). Just accept it as normal. 🤺 Myth Busted: What is common in aging isn't necessarily "normal". You can - and many do - live healthily and well long into your later years! (AKA matching your healthspan to your lifespan.) 💡 "Drs. Schaie and Willis demonstrated that cognitive functioning isn’t as simple as an early peak and a guaranteed decline as we age. They helped to combat ageist attitudes, showing us that there are many people who stay sharp in their old age." This was a ✨ 56 year, 6000+ participant ✨ study of cognitive health and aging. For comparison, most longitudinal studies limit their data to 5-10 years and much smaller participant groups, because it's so hard to track so many folks for so long. Unreal!

K. Warner Schaie, PhD, asked the critical question that launched a study into brain health: what happens to the brain as it ages? Though psychologists have developed a battery of tests to evaluate cognitive function in young people, very few had thought to ask about what happens when the brain ages, assuming that physical and cognitive function peak in their 20s before declining into adulthood. The Seattle Longitudinal Study was one of the most extensive psychological research studies of cognitive health and aging ever conducted. It followed participants from 1956 to 2012, tracking cognitive changes over the adult lifespan. See how UW researchers are using the data to find new insights into brain health. “Drs. Schaie and Willis demonstrated that cognitive functioning isn’t as simple as an early peak and a guaranteed decline as we age,” says Jürgen Unützer, MD, MPH, MA, chair of the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “They helped to combat ageist attitudes, showing us that there are many people who stay sharp in their old age.” Read more about The Seattle Longitudinal Study and its significance.

Can emerging technologies improve mental health diagnosis and treatment? Mental health research needs to be shared openly to address the current mental health crisis, say experts from McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT Open Learning, McLean Hospital, and Wellcome Trust. “We feel this urgency. We have to do something together as a community of scientists and partners of all kinds to make a difference,” says John Gabrieli, MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences professor and director of MIT Integrated Learning Initiative at Open Learning. Explore more insights: https://bit.ly/3z780ts #MentalHealth #Research #Education #Learning #LifelongLearning #OpenEducation #OpenAccess #Neuroscience #Psychiatry #Psychology

#Adults' #phobias #showup as #differences in the #brain #Psychology #Psychiatry #Neuroscience ------ https://lnkd.in/gXFGkpK2 ------ Adults' phobias can be correlated with changes in the structure of their brains, a new study finds. What's more, the neurological differences seen in adults with phobias are more extensive than those observed in people with other forms of anxiety. Phobia is the most common anxiety disorder, affecting more than 12% of people, said the research team led by Kevin Hilbert, a psychology research assistant with the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much research directed specifically at phobias, the team said. "Few studies have examined differences in brain structure associated with specific phobia, and those were generally conducted in small samples and targeted isolated regions of interest," the team wrote. To take a closer look, researchers examined MRI scans from more than 1,400 children and adults with a specific phobia, as well as nearly 3,000 healthy people. The most common phobias were animal phobias (739 participants) and phobias related to blood, injury or injections (182 participants). They found that people with phobias had increased thickness in some parts of the frontal cortex, as well as reduced size in regions like the caudate nucleus, putamen and hippocampus. The altered regions are involved in fear-related brain processes like movement, aversion and emotional processing. However, the size of the amygdala—a central brain regulator of fear and aggression—was not significantly altered in people with phobia. People suffering from blood, injury and injection phobias had more profound changes than those with animal phobias, supporting the notion that those phobias involve higher cognitive processes, researchers said. That might be why that type of phobia can elicit both fear and disgust. Interestingly, these brain structure changes weren't found in people younger than 21. Instead, they seem to manifest during adulthood, researchers reported in the journal AJP in Advance. "It was a surprising finding given that [phobia] onset early in childhood is so common and given that neurofunctional and structural correlates are observed in individuals with other anxiety disorders, and even in youths at risk for anxiety disorders," the research team wrote in a journal news release. Since many childhood phobias dissolve in adulthood, the large structural changes seen in adult MRIs might reflect a more persistent form of the anxiety disorder, researchers said.

A new study reveals a significant association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and symptoms of muscle dysmorphia in adolescents and young adults. https://loom.ly/at8QxuM Learn more here! . . . . . #BrainWareLearning #cognitive #cognitivelearning #cognitivescience #scienceoflearning #brainwareSAFARI #neuro #school #education #students #teachers #learning #psychology #brains #motivation #neuroscience #brainhealth #mentalhealth #brainfunction #thinking #health #parenting #childdevelopment #science #humans #research

A new study reveals a significant association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and symptoms of muscle dysmorphia in adolescents and young adults. https://loom.ly/at8QxuM Learn more here! . . . . . #BrainWareLearning #cognitive #cognitivelearning #cognitivescience #scienceoflearning #brainwareSAFARI #neuro #school #education #students #teachers #learning #psychology #brains #motivation #neuroscience #brainhealth #mentalhealth #brainfunction #thinking #health #parenting #childdevelopment #science #humans #research

Brain health in those over 50 deteriorated more rapidly during the pandemic, even if they didn’t have COVID-19, according to major new research linking the pandemic to sustained cognitive decline.  Researchers looked at results from computerised brain function tests from more than 3,000 participants of the online PROTECT study, who were aged between 50 and 90 and based in the UK. The remote study, led by teams at Exeter and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London, tested participants’ short-term memory and ability to complete complex tasks.  Find out more at https://lnkd.in/esKeaawh #covid #cognition #brainfunction #research #psychology #dementia #memory

Our faculty members are involved in research on topics like veteran health, alcohol use disorder, and autism to advance the field of psychiatry and neuroscience. Find their recent work here: https://stan.md/3VFBJ5z "Recognizing the academic contributions of clinician educators" in Academic Medicine by Stanford Psychiatry's Laura Roberts MD, MA "Serum albumin and white matter hyperintensities" in Translational Psychiatry by researchers from Stanford Psychiatry and SRI. "Workforce initiatives to advance health equity and diverse representation" in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America by researchers from Tulane University, Tufts University, Stanford, and Georgetown University. "TMS provokes target-dependent intracranial rhythms across human cortical and subcortical sites" in Brain Stimulation by researchers from Stanford, the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Palo Alto Health Care System. "Neuroanatomical, transcriptomic, and molecular correlates of math ability and their prognostic value for predicting learning outcomes" in Science Advances by researchers from Stanford Psychiatry, the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, and Stanford Neurology & Neurological Sciences. "How much online pornography is too much? A comparison of two theoretically distinct assessment scales" in the Archives of Public Health by researchers from Stanford and other institutions. "Preparing Veterans Health Administration psychologists to meet the complex needs of aging veterans" in Federal Practitioner Special Issue by researchers from Stanford and other institutions. "Alcohol use disorder and dementia: A review" in Alcohol Research by Stanford Psychiatry's Natalie M. Zahr. "Characterising insistence on sameness and circumscribed interests: A qualitative study of parent perspectives" in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders by researchers from multiple institutions, including Stanford.

Exciting advancements are being made in the field of misophonia research! This past year saw a surge in studies shedding light on the brain processes, psychology, psychiatry, audiology, and co-occurring disorders related to misophonia. Researchers are collaborating to unravel the complexities of this condition, offering hope for better treatment strategies. Dive into this comprehensive article to discover the latest findings and gain a deeper understanding of misophonia's underlying mechanisms. Science is paving the way for innovative approaches to

"Researchers discovered that early-life stress alters more brain genes than childhood head injuries, as shown in a rat study. This research used a rat model to mimic human early-life stress and head injury, revealing significant genetic changes in the hippocampal region." Navigating a challenging diagnostic scenario: Is the issue with social cognition and emotion processing attributed to trauma or ADHD? Similarly, is the difficulty in forming new memories and learning a result of trauma or ADHD? The choice of treatment may diverge significantly based on the etiology of social cognition, emotion processing, and impaired memory functioning. #trauma #adhd #hippocampus #clinicalpsychology #dsm #healthequity