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The Disconnected Mind – June 2013 The Disconnected Mind aims to understand how changes in the brain’s white matter – its connectivity – contribute to age-related cognitive decline in humans. Newsletter 22: June 2013 Welcome to the Disconnected Mind summer newsletter. The third wave of cognitive testing and brain imaging of the LBC1936 started in 2011. It is now on the home stretch. We are on track to complete fieldwork by the end of this year. More details of this progress and meetings that the DM team have attended are included in this issue. There is also the regular contribution from our colleagues at Age UK. For more information about anything in the newsletter, get in touch. Contact details are on the last page. Let us know especially if you have something you’d like to be included in a future issue. LBC1936 Study Progress To date, the LBC1936 Team has seen 566 participants at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility for their 3 rd cognitive and physical assessment. Of these, 372 have also completed their 2 nd brain scan after about a 3 year gap. We aim to complete this wave of testing towards the end of the year. These additional data will represent an exciting and powerful opportunity to improve our understanding of the possible mechanisms of cognitive ageing. Application for renewal of the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE) The last several months have been a very busy time for Professor Ian Deary and his team in CCACE. CCACE is the Medical Research Council-administered Centre that provides substantial infrastructure for cognitive ageing research in Edinburgh. The Disconnected Mind – Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 is the flagship study within the Centre. The Disconnected Mind benefits enormously from the staff and resources of the Centre. This adds considerable value to the core funding provided by Age UK. The Centre’s first five years come to an end on 31 st August 2013. The lengthy and detailed process of applying for another five years of funding was started by Ian and his team’s submission at the end of 2012. This was initially examined by seven referees. This continued with a visit to Edinburgh of a panel of six internationally-renowned scientists and panel members from the MRC and BBSRC. They conducted a day-long set of meetings at CCACE. Visiting panel members discuss posters with junior CCACE researchers

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Page 1: The Disconnected Mind aims to understand how changes in the … · 2015. 6. 9. · The Disconnected Mind – June 2013 The Disconnected Mind aims to understand how changes in the

The Disconnected Mind – June 2013

The Disconnected Mind aims to understand

how changes in the brain’s white matter – its connectivity – contribute to age-related cognitive decline in humans.

Newsletter 22: June 2013 Welcome to the Disconnected Mind summer newsletter. The third wave of cognitive testing and brain imaging of the LBC1936 started in 2011. It is now on the home stretch. We are on track to complete fieldwork by the end of this year. More details of this progress and meetings that the DM team have attended are included in this issue. There is also the regular contribution from our colleagues at Age UK. For more information about anything in the newsletter, get in touch. Contact details are on the last page. Let us know especially if you have something you’d like to be included in a future issue. LBC1936 Study Progress To date, the LBC1936 Team has seen 566 participants at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility for their 3rd cognitive and physical assessment. Of these, 372 have also completed their 2nd brain scan after about a 3 year gap. We aim to complete this wave of testing towards the end of the year. These additional data will represent an exciting and powerful opportunity to improve our understanding of the possible mechanisms of cognitive ageing. Application for renewal of the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE) The last several months have been a very busy time for Professor Ian Deary and his team in CCACE. CCACE is the Medical

Research Council-administered Centre that provides substantial infrastructure for cognitive ageing research in Edinburgh. The Disconnected Mind – Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 is the flagship study within the Centre. The Disconnected Mind benefits enormously from the staff and resources of the Centre. This adds considerable value to the core funding provided by Age UK. The Centre’s first five years come to an end on 31st August 2013. The lengthy and detailed process of applying for another five years of funding was started by Ian and his team’s submission at the end of 2012. This was initially examined by seven referees. This continued with a visit to Edinburgh of a panel of six internationally-renowned scientists and panel members from the MRC and BBSRC. They conducted a day-long set of meetings at CCACE.

Visiting panel members discuss posters

with junior CCACE researchers

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The Disconnected Mind – June 2013

During the day, Ian and his team gave ten presentations followed by discussion and interview. At the end of this highly-detailed scrutiny, the panel will be submitting their recommendation to the MRC’s Neurosciences and Mental Health Board on July 10th 2013. They will be recommending a very high score (9 out of 10), so Ian is very hopeful of refunding for the Centre for five more years. Disconnected Mind on the BBC The BBC’s medical correspondent Adam Brimelow came to Edinburgh to speak to Ian and the LBC1936 team on 23rd May 2013. Adam spent a good part of the day speaking with Ian, researcher Alison Pattie, and LBC1936 participant Thomasina Wallace. Adam was very interested in the origins of the study and its findings and implications for healthy ageing. The feature went out on the PM show BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 4 June between 5-6pm, tying in with the 66th anniversary of the initial LBC testing. There is an accompanying article on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22767016

News from Age UK As usual in this feature, we’re pleased to bring you news from in and around Age UK. An important part of our work in the Age UK Research Department is to generate insights on older people and act as an agent of knowledge transfer. We bridge research-derived evidence that can improve later life and the attainment of those improvements. Our latest publication is a case in point. We realised that, although the ‘oldest old’ – people age 80 and over – represent the fastest-growing sector of society, their specific needs are rarely recognised. So we published a book, Improving Later Life: Understanding the Oldest Old, which aims to change that. We invited a range of world-leading experts – including Ian Deary and John Starr – to contribute chapters putting forwards the latest evidence-based knowledge and advice on different aspects of life for the oldest old. The chapters were consolidated into the book, which is the first-ever comprehensive guide for healthcare professionals, care-givers and public policy-makers on what they need to know when working for and with the oldest old. The book has attracted widespread interest, with over 1,000 copies distributed and features in BBC Health News online, Channel 4 News, the British Medical Journal and more. We’ve set up dedicated pages on the Age UK website with a downloadable version and additional materials and case studies: www.ageuk.org/oldest

The Disconnected Mind research

featured on the BBC website and Radio 4

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The Disconnected Mind – June 2013

You may already know that over 1 million older people (65+) in the UK are malnourished or at risk of malnourishment and that malnutrition is a major cause and consequence of poor health. Age UK and other stakeholders are now addressing the problems jointly through the Malnutrition Task Force. Established in 2012 and led by Age UK’s Chair Dianne Jeffrey, the Task Force is an independent panel of experts drawn from health and social care and local government. It aims to reduce malnutrition in older people in order to optimise health, improve quality of life and reduce unnecessary costs across the NHS health and social care systems. As part of its activities, the Task Force has drawn together principles of best practice and used them to develop a framework to help those in a wide range of health and care settings to counter

malnutrition. A series of guides has recently been published within the framework for hospitals, care homes and local communities. For the guides or more information on malnutrition, visit http://www.malnutritiontaskforce.org.uk/index.html Mixed emotions end this section. We’re sorry to tell you that our Charity Director-General, Michelle Mitchell, who some of you will have met, is leaving Age UK in August. But at the same time, we’re happy for Michelle as she’s taking up the prestigious post of Chief Executive of the MS Society. We congratulate her on her appointment. Arrangements are in hand to recruit her successor and we’ll keep you posted. Grey matter health dates back to childhood? One of the many exciting scientific reports from the Disconnected Mind-Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study will be appearing soon in the top specialist journal Molecular Psychiatry. This is a collaboration with psychiatrist Sherif Karama and head of the section, Professor Alan Evans at the famous Montreal Neurological Institute. The newly-released story has already been picked up by Science Daily.

“Improving Late Life: Understanding the

Oldest Old”. Age UK’s guide to ageing.

A fond farewell to Age UK’s outgoing Charity Director General, Michelle

Mitchell.

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The Disconnected Mind – June 2013

Findings concern the thickness of the grey matter on the surface of the brain. The team found that there were many places on the surface of the brain where those LBC1936 subjects who had thicker grey matter also had better scores on tests of important types of thinking skill. However, the LBC1936 data added a special twist. The most unusual thing about the cohort is that, although they are now in older age, they have cognitive ability test scores from age 11. Once these 60-year-old test scores were brought into the equation, the association between thicker grey matter and cognitive ability in old age disappeared. What might be the explanation for such a dramatic result? It is possible that there is a life-long association between cognition and cortical thickness; or that higher ability in childhood is associated with lifestyle and other factors that promote a healthier brain. However, it is most important to note that, whereas other research teams might have concluded that thicker grey matter was causing better cognitive ageing, the LBC1936’s rare data were able to show that this was not the case, and that other explanations should be sought. Steven Pinker visits Disconnected Mind project The Harvard University psychologist and bestselling author Steven Pinker came to visit Ian Deary on 29th May 2013. He was in Edinburgh to deliver one of the University’s prestigious Gifford Lectures. He’d especially asked to visit Ian and discuss the work on cognition arising from the Scottish Mental Surveys, including the Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1921 and 1936. Professor Pinker showed special interest in the genetic and brain imaging research of the Disconnected Mind. He was impressed by the ability of the Lothian Birth Cohorts to detect instances of reverse causation in cognitive ageing research.

Out and about with the DM team Building on an energetic start to 2013, DM researchers have continued to present research findings and give talks at a range of conferences and events. In March, Tom Booth, René Mõttus and Alan Gow attended the First World Congress on Personality in Stellenbosch, South Africa. They presented LBC1936-related work entitled: “Personality, Health and Brain Integrity”, Cognitive Ability, Genes and Diabetes” and “Personality and mortality in the Lothian Birth Cohorts” respectively. We are grateful for their excellent photos, below.

Professor Deary with Steven Pinker at

the Disconnected Mind.

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The Disconnected Mind – June 2013

1st World Congress on Personality, Stellenbosch, South Africa, March 2013

René Mõttus (top left), Tom Booth (middle left) and Alan Gow (bottom left),

presenting their work in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

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The Disconnected Mind – June 2013

Ian Deary was invited to present the results of the LBC1936-Disconnected Mind Study at the meeting of the British Neuroscience Association at the Barbican Centre in London in April. This was billed as a Festival of Neuroscience. In a well-attended symposium that was focussed on cognitive ageing, Ian described the genetic, biomedical, psychosocial, and lifestyle factors that his team had found to be related to protection from deleterious cognitive ageing in the LBC 1936 study. This was a good opportunity to showcase the Disconnected Mind results to a wide range of neuroscience researchers and the media who attended the conference. Maria Valdés Hernández presented her research “Iron deposition in the brain is associated with declining cognition and increasing white matter damage in older subjects” at the 22nd European Stroke Conference in London. If you are going to be presenting at a conference over the next few months or are participating in any other events promoting the work of The Disconnected Mind, please get in touch with the details so that it can be shared with the rest of the team. Newly ‘in press’ Here is the current list of articles in press. You can stay up-to-date on publication progress by checking the regularly-updated list of publications at: www.lothianbirthcohort.ed.ac.uk.

Amin, N., 13 authors, Luciano, M., Davies, G., 2 authors, Deary, I. J., 19 authors, van Duijn, C. M. (in press). Refining genome-wide linkage intervals using a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies several loci influencing personality dimensions. European Journal of Human Genetics. Doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2012.263.

Benyamin, B., 2 authors, Davies, G., 16 authors, Harris, S.E., Liewald, D.C., 6 authors, Starr, J.M., 12 authors, Deary, I. J., Plomin, R., & Visscher, P. M. (in press). Childhood intelligence is heritable, highly polygenic and associated with FNBP1L. Molecular Psychiatry. Doi: 10.1038/mp.2012.184.

Booth, T., Bastin, M. E., Penke, L., Maniega, S. M., Murray, C.., Royle, N. A., Gow, A. J., Corley, J., Henderson, R. D., Hernández, M. V., Starr, J. M., Wardlaw, J. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press). Brain white matter integrity and cognitive abilities in community-dwelling older people: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. Neuropsychology.

Davies, G., Harris, S.E., 3 authors, Liewald, D.C., Lopez, L.M., Luciano, M., Gow, A.J., Corley, J., Murray, C., Pattie, A., Fox, H.C., Redmond, P., 11 authors, Porteous, D.J. 1 author, Starr, J.M., 4 authors & Deary, I. J. (in press). A genome-wide association study implicates the APOE locus in non-pathological cognitive ageing. Molecular Psychiatry. Doi: 10.1038/mp.2012.159.

Gow, A. J., Corley, J., Starr, J. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press). What social network or support factors best predict cognitive abilities in old age? Gerontology.

Jahanshad, N., 19 authors, Starr, J.M., 2 authors, Wardlaw, J.M., 2 authors, Bastin, M.E., McIntosh, A.M., Deary, I. J., Thompson, P. M., & Glahn, D. C. (in press). Multi-site genetic analysis of diffusion images and voxelwise heritability analysis: a pilot project of the ENIGMA-DTI Working Group. NeuroImage.

Johnson, W., Gow, A. J., Corley, J., Redmond, P., Henderson, R., Murray, C., Starr, J. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press). Can we spot deleterious ageing in two waves of data? The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 from ages 70 to 73. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies.

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The Disconnected Mind – June 2013

Karama, S., Bastin, M. E., Murray, C., Royle, N. A., Penke, L., Maniega, S. M., Gow, A. J., Corley, J., Valdés Hernández, M. C., Lewis, J. D., Rousseau, M.-E., Lepage, C., Fonov, V., Collins, L., Booth, T., Rioux, P., Sherif, T., Adalat, R., Starr, J. M., Evans, A. C., Wardlaw, J. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press). Childhood cognitive ability explains associations between cognitive ability and brain cortical thickness in old age. Molecular Psychiatry.

Middledorp, C. M., 36 authors, Luciano, M., 2 authors, Davies, G., Lopez, L.M., 11 authors, Deary, I. J., 7 authors, Boomsma, D. I. (in press). The genetic association between personality and major depression or bipolar disorder. A polygenic score analysis using genome wide association data. Translational Psychiatry.

Mõttus, R., McNeill, G., Jia, X., Craig, L. A., Starr, J. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press). The associations between personality, diet and body mass index in older people. Health Psychology.

Rietveld, C. A., 18 authors, Davies, G., 73 authors, Deary, I. J., 38 authors, Liewlad, D. C., 31 authors, Starr, J. M., 33 authors, Koellinger, P. D. (in press). GWAS of 126,559 individuals identifies genetic variants associated with educational attainment. Science.

Ritchie, S. J., Bates, T. C., Der, G., Starr, J. M., & Deary, I. J. (in press). Education is associated with higher later-life IQ scores, but not with faster cognitive processing speed. Psychology and Aging. Doi: 10.1037/a0030820.

Royle, N.A., Booth, T., Valdés Hernández, M.C., Penke, L. Murray, C., Gow, A.J., Muñoz Maniega, S., Starr, J., Bastin, M.E., Deary, I.J., & Wardlaw, J.M. (in press). Estimated maximal and current brain volume predict cognitive ability in old age. Neurobiology of Aging.

Thomson, P., 19 authors, Watson, J. D., Deary, I. J., 3 authors, Porteous, D. J. (in press). 708 common and 2,010 rarer

DISC1 variants identified in 1,542 subjects: analysis for association with psychiatric disorder and cognitive traits. Molecular Psychiatry.

Valdes Hernandez, M., Booth, T., Murray, C., Gow, A. J., Penke, L., Morris, Z., Munoz Maniega, S., Royle, N., Aribisala, B., Starr, J. M., Deary, I. J., & Wardlaw, J. M. (in press). Brain white matter damage in aging and cognitive ability in youth and old age. Neurobiology of Aging.

Contact For PDF versions of anything listed, please contact Paul Redmond ([email protected]) in the first instance. Please get in touch with any items for inclusion in future newsletters, including your ’in press’ or recently published papers. They’ll be added to the website and may be profiled in a future newsletter.

Simon Cox [email protected]

June 2013

www.lothianbirthcohort.ed.ac.uk