Biomarkers and Racial/Ethnic Diversity
in Older Adults
Sid O'Bryant, PhD
&
The Neuroscience of Adversity
Maya L. Rosen, PhD
Morning Session: 9 AM - 12 PM
Biomarkers and Racial/Ethnic Diversity
in Older Adults
Sid O'Bryant, PhD
Professor and Executive Director of the Institute for Translational Research
University of North Texas Health Science Center
Fort Worth, TX
As the population of those aged 65 and over continues to grow, so does the diversity of the U.S. population. In fact, by 2060 approximately 27.5% of the population will be Hispanic, 15% will be African American, and 44.3% will be non-Hispanic white. Dr. Sid O'Bryant is the principal investigator of the Health & Aging Brain Study – Health Disparities (HABS-HD), which is the most comprehensive study of Alzheimer’s disease among the three largest racial/ethnic groups in the U.S. ever conducted – African Americans, Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites. The goal of the HABS-HD program is to understand the life course factors, including biological, sociocultural, environmental, and behavioral, that impact risk for Alzheimer’s disease in late life. This work will ultimately lead to population-specific precision medicine approaches to treating and preventing Alzheimer’s disease (i.e., “treating your Alzheimer’s disease”). In addition to being a global leader in health disparities in cognitive aging, Dr. O’Bryant is a global expert in the use of blood-based biomarkers for the generation of a precision medicine approach to novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Dementia with Lewy Bodies and Alzheimer’s disease among adults with Down Syndrome.
Learning Objectives are:
- Discuss recent developments in biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease
- Describe the importance of understanding race and ethnicity when interpreting these novel biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease
- Describe recent literature on the impact of race/ethnicity on advance biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease
**********************************************
Afternoon Session: 1 PM - 4 PM
The Neuroscience of Adversity
Maya L. Rosen, PhD
Program in Neuroscience
Clark Science Center, Smith College
Northampton, MA
Maya Rosen is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist investigating how environmental experience during childhood—including socioeconomic status, cognitive stimulation, and exposure to violence—are associated with cognitive and neural development in children from diverse backgrounds. The ultimate goal of her research is to understand how individual differences in cognitive and neural function influence children’s chances for success in life, including academic achievement, socio-emotional development, and mental health.
Dr. Rosen received her Ph.D. from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. Her graduate work focused on understanding how we use past experience to guide attention and the neural correlates that support memory-guided attention. Before that, Rosen graduated from Skidmore College with a dual degree in Neuroscience and Spanish.
The learning objectives for her presentation are as follows:
- Distinguish the ways in which different forms of adversity may impact neural and cognitive development
- Discuss downstream impact of distinct forms of adversity on academic and mental health outcomes in youth
- Uncover how youth mental health problems have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Examine factors (social, behavioral, neural) that provide resilience in the face of adversity (early life and pandemic-related)
