Our research is supported by funds from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE), and Stiftelsen 1759.
Our work is primarily based on longitudinal population-based data from the SNAC-K study and the NEAR infrastructure. We collaborate extensively in international consortia, including SHARED, COSMIC.
Current projects
Reserve and resilience in cognitive and brain aging
Aging is associated with structural shrinkage, molecular alterations and functional disruptions affecting most parts of the brain. In turn, these brain changes have been linked with decline in several cognitive domains, including working memory, episodic memory, processing speed, and executive function. However, inter-individual variability in cognitive performance is often too vast to be accounted for by the brain pathology markers alone. Instead, the processes of neural decline which include brain atrophy, synaptic loss, and white matter degradation are widely believed to be counteracted by the processes of neural enhancement that involve preservation, repair, or replenishment of neural resources.
The model of cognitive reserve (CR) is one of the most well-known theories of compensatory mechanisms restricting the impact of brain damage on cognitive outcomes. CR is assumed to manifest through two mechanistic functions: neural reserve, the efficiency or capacity of pre-existing functional brain networks; and neural compensation: the ability to enlist compensatory strategies to withstand interruption in the face of damage. Despite much previous research on CR, considerable questions about its role in cognitive aging remain unanswered. These can be summarized across three key areas:
- Reserve operationalization approaches
- Selection of brain pathology markers supposedly modified by reserve; and
- Consideration of changes in reserve during aging.
The work conducted by our group aims to provide answers to some of these questions.
Extending the model of reserve to physical resilience
Physical resilience describes an individual’s ability to withstand decline or recover function in the face of age-related losses or diseases. It is believed to be shaped by the individuals’ intrinsic biological resources, but also by the social and psychosocial environments they inhabit. It is thought to manifest through two complementary processes: resistance (outright avoidance of negative perturbations) and recovery (restoration of homeostasis following a disturbance). And since resilience has been defined as a whole-person level characteristic that cuts across organ systems, enhancing it may have the potential to improve multiple outcomes facing a variety of stressors.
While its theoretical premise is largely well described and its promise well recognized, considerable questions remain about [1] how resilience is formed, [2] how it should be measured, and [3] what its consequences are for older adults’ long-term outcomes, including disability trajectories, healthcare utilization, and mortality. In this project we aim to provide answers to these pressing questions. Our recently published article in the Journals of Gerontology Medical Sciences, (Physical Resilience May Offset Mortality Risks Associated With Genetic Predisposition to Shorter Survival: A Population-based Cohort Study), represents a first of a series of studies on physical resilience, demonstrating that better-preserved walking speed in late life (for a given clinic-psychosocial profile) partly modified mortality risk associated with genetic predisposition to shorter survival. We are expanding this framework further, integrating complementary models of SuperAgers and centenarians.
Depression in old age
Depression in late life demands urgent attention, due to its severe consequences for the individuals, their families, and the healthcare systems. It is a multifactorial disorder that likely occurs as a result of an interplay between social and biological factors unfolding throughout the entire life course. In our research, we seek to uncover:
- Heterogeneity of late-life depression in terms of severity, symptom profile, and natural history, and comorbidity
- Social inequalities in late-life depression and its prevention via modifiable lifestyle factors.
- Mitigation of depression’s negative health and functioning consequences
- Optimizing care and management of late-life depression.