Reading, healthy cognitive ageing, and plasticity after brain injury

• Applicant: Dr. Susanne Schütt
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2010 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 168166127

Healthy cognitive ageing and life-long learning is of increasing relevance in our ageing societies. However, the factors that promote and those that affect cognitive health and successful learning (plasticity), i.e. the cognitive reserve, in old age are still unclear. The most commonly suggested determinants are educational and occupational attainment. Yet, preliminary evidence suggests that lifetime exposure to reading and reading in later life may be the major predictor for cognitive health and the cognitive reserve in old age. Further, depressive symptoms, personality traits, and gender may also play an important role in this regard. Yet, no study has established their effects on cognitive functioning and plasticity in old age and in acquired brain injury hitherto. Moreover, the cognitive reserve and its determinants have mostly been investigated in the context of neurodegenerative diseases but not in acquired brain injury or vision impairment, the major causes of disability in old age. I therefore seek to investigate the effects of reading, educational and occupational attainment, depressive symptoms, personality traits, and gender on cognitive functioning, in particular attention, memory and executive functions, in older subjects. Secondly, I investigate the effects of the same variables on functional impairments and rehabilitation outcome in older patients with homonymous visual field disorders after acquired brain injury. This research fills a huge gap in our understanding of and promoting healthy cognitive ageing and plasticity in old age and in acquired brain injury.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Austria
• Host: Professorin Dr. Ilse Kryspin-Exner