Behavioral Contributions to Cognitive Health in Old Age

2017 UC Davis Alzheimer's Community Engagement Series

This is the fifth lecture in a six part series offered by the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center for the Sacramento metropolitan area and communities throughout Northern California. The theme of this year’s series is healthy brain aging and prevention. Six lectures, planned around this theme, include preventative information on healthy brain aging, vitamins and supplements, diet, alternative medicine approaches, social interaction and exercise.

With increasing numbers of adults living longer, the prevalence of cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and related disorders is on the rise. These declines in functional abilities and quality of life have resulted in a growing emphasis on maintaining brain health. Dr. Robert Wilson will present evidence from ongoing clinical-pathologic studies linking aspects of life experience with risk of dementia and cognitive decline in old age and consider the neurobiologic bases of these associations.

Dr. Wilson is a professor in the Department of Neurological Sciences and Department of Behavioral Sciences at Rush University Medical Center. He has extensive experience with longitudinal cohort studies of late-life cognitive functioning, including population based studies, cognitive neuroscience studies, and clinical-pathological studies. His research has focused on modeling late life change in cognitive function; identifying antecedents and consequences of cognitive loss in old age; and determining whether cognitive aging, its antecedents, or its consequences vary in racial or ethnic subgroups or birth cohorts.