Brain Health

ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN

PROCEEDINGS OF A WORKSHOP

Anna Nicholson, Rapporteur

Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice

Health and Medicine Division

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
www.nap.edu

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This activity was supported by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-67261-0
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-67261-9
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/25703

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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Brain health across the life span: Proceedings of a workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25703.

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PLANNING COMMITTEE ON BRAIN HEALTH ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN¹

HUDA AKIL, Gardner Quarton Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and Codirector of the Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, University of Michigan

B. J. CASEY, Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Yale University

DAMIEN A. FAIR, Associate Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Oregon Health & Science University

JENNIFER J. MANLY, Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology at the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease, Columbia University

BRUCE S. McEWEN, Alfred E. Mirsky Professor, The Rockefeller University

BRUCE L. MILLER, A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor in Neurology, University of California, San Francisco

Health and Medicine Division Staff

KATHLEEN STRATTON, Scholar

ROSE MARIE MARTINEZ, Senior Board Director

ANDREW MERLUZZI, Program Officer

ANNA MARTIN, Administrative Assistant

PAMELA RAMEY-McCRAY, Senior Program Assistant (until October 2019)

MISRAK DABI, Finance Business Partner

Consultant

ANNA NICHOLSON, Science Writer

___________________

¹ The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s planning committees are solely responsible for organizing the workshop, identifying topics, and choosing speakers. The responsibility for the published Proceedings of a Workshop rests with the workshop rapporteur and the institution.

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In Memoriam

This Proceedings of a Workshop is dedicated to Dr. Bruce S. McEwen, who served as a planning committee member for this project. Dr. McEwen’s research transformed our understanding of how the brain changes throughout life, especially with respect to hormones, stress, and resilience. He was an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine and a cherished friend to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine as a whole. He will be dearly missed.

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Reviewers

This Proceedings of a Workshop was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published proceedings as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.

We thank the following individuals for their review of this proceedings:

Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the content of the proceedings nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this proceedings was overseen by MARTÍN J. SEPÚLVEDA, Claraluzz, LLC. He was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this proceedings was carried out in accordance with standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the rapporteur and the National Academies.

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Contents

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

1 INTRODUCTION

Workshop Objectives

Organization of the Proceedings

2 FUNDAMENTALS OF BRAIN HEALTH AND RESILIENCE

Multiscale Approach for Brain Health

Fundamental Concepts of Brain Health and Resilience

3 BRAIN–BODY INTERACTIONS

Effect of Circadian Rhythms on Health Across the Life Span

Early Environmental Risk Factors for Mental Health Disorders

Insulin Resistance: A Link in Brain–Body Interactions

Panel Discussion on Brain–Body Interactions

4 BEHAVIORAL AND BIOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE

Neural Correlates of Attention and Cognition

Role of Meditation in Improving Brain Health and Resilience

Panel Discussion on Behavioral and Biological Convergence

5 MEASURING BRAIN HEALTH

Grand Views and Potholes on the Road to Precision Neuroscience

Panel Discussion on the Way Forward in Measurement and Research

6 BRAIN HEALTH IN THE SOCIAL CONTEXT

From Me to We: How the Brain Forms, Maintains, and Restores Healthy Relationships

Motivation, Cognition, and Decision Making in Everyday Life

Life-Course Causes of Later-Life Inequalities in Brain Health

Panel Discussion on Brain Health in the Social Context

7 BRAIN HEALTH ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN

Early Adversity, Emotional Processing, and the Neural Bases of Psychiatric Illness

The Impact of Early-Life Stress on Neurodevelopment

Integrating Complex and Personalized Data to Understand Normal and Abnormal Brain Network Development

Brain Network Aging and Health Across the Adult Life Span

Panel Discussion on the Way Forward in Measurement and Research

APPENDIXES

A Speaker Biographical Sketches

B Workshop Agenda

C References

Boxes, Figures, and Table

BOXES

1-1 Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Initiatives Related to Brain Health

3-1 Role of the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus in Coordinating Circadian Rhythms

4-1 Connectome-Based Predictive Modeling

4-2 DSM-5 Criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder

5-1 Mandatory Preregistration

FIGURES

3-1 Childhood and adolescent sleep characteristics predict later substance abuse

3-2 Vicious cycle of circadian rhythm disruption and neurodegeneration

3-3 Effect of maternal factors on offspring brain development and behavior

3-4 Possible mediators of metabolic disruption

3-5 Potential trajectories of health over the life span

4-1 Measuring functional brain connectivity

4-2 Predicting task performance based on functional connectivity patterns

4-3 Change in functional connectivity in patients with generalized anxiety disorder

5-1 Caffeine and food consumption affects large-scale network structure

6-1 Older adults want immediate social and health rewards

6-2 Regional variation in the decline of D2-like receptors with aging

7-1 Individually estimated slopes over time for total hippocampus volume as a function of preschool maternal support

7-2 Model of disrupted development of limbic and cortical regions

7-3 Amygdala hyperactivity reduces developmental plasticity

7-4 Clinical item loadings accord with clinical experience and cross diagnostic boundaries

7-5 Effect of aging on network segregation

7-6 Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with reduced system segregation in middle-age adulthood

TABLE

6-1 Pathways Associated with Loneliness in Human and Animal Models

Acronyms and Abbreviations