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Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project

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Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project

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Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project

Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project

There is substantial international interest in the potential for mental stimulation to provide a protective influence on the trajectory of ageing-related cognitive decline and risk of dementia. While there is significant epidemiological evidence for a protective effect of early-life education for protection against dementia; there is little direct evidence indicating that later life purposeful ‘brain exercise’ can protect from developing dementia and age-related cognitive decline through enhancing cognitive reserve.

The Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project (THBP) is a collaborative world-first study between the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre (WDREC) and the University of Tasmania (UTAS). The study aims to determine if tertiary education later in life reduces age-related cognitive decline and significantly decreases risk, or delays onset, of dementia.

Date started

2011
Objectives
  • To examine whether participation of older adults in University education modifies subsequent ageing-related cognitive decline.
  • To determine whether later-life university education, increased socialisation, lifetime mental activity, decreases in depressive symptomatology or increased quality of life are the critical factor in reducing age-related cognitive decline.
  • To determine whether genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) mediate or modulate any beneficial effect of later-life university educational enhancement on age-related cognitive decline.
  • To determine if genetic polymorphisms linked to cognitive performance and brain plasticity contribute to cognitive reserve and/or effects of late-life education.
  • To ascertain if increasing the cognitive reserve of older adults results in a significantly decreased risk, or delayed onset, of neurodegenerative diseases such as AD.
Research team
  • Prof James Vickers (Co-Project Leader & Chief Investigator)
  • Dr Mathew Summers (Co-Project Leader & Chief Investigator)
  • Dr Nikki Saunders (Research Fellow & Project Coordinator)
  • A/Prof Michael Valenzuela (Chief Investigator)
  • Prof Andrew Robinson (Chief Investigator)
  • Prof Jeffery Summers (Chief Investigator)
  • Prof Karen Ritchie (Chief Investigator)
Collaborators
  • David Ward (PhD Candidate)
  • Megan Lenehan (PhD Candidate)
  • Suzie Castillo (Administration)
  • Annette Gibson (Marketing)
  • Donnamay Brown (Research Assistant)
  • Jo Savage (Research Assistant)
  • Kimberly Stuart (Research Assistant)
  • Emmanuelle Bostock (Research Assistant)
Funding

This project is funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHRMC) Project grant (1003645).