Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study – Christmas 2013

LBC1936

Christmas Newsletter

98

Season’s greetings from the LBC1936 study team! It’s time to wrap up another exciting year of progress on the study. This newsletter will give you a flavour of the advances we’ve made as well as what we are looking forward to in the future. We hope you enjoy reading about this year’s results and news. Wave 3 is now complete!

Our final LBC participant of Wave 3, Joseph Beggs, with Alison Pattie.

We are delighted to say that Wave 3 of the LBC1936 study is now complete. A total of 697 LBC1936 participants completed cognitive testing, 487 of you have had MRI scans and nearly 180 people have signed up to our LBC1936 Brain Tissue Bank so far. These are astounding numbers, and we thank you warmly for your continued commitment to

the study. None of this would be possible without you!

LBC1936 Reunion Event – Spring 2014 To mark the end of our 3rd wave of testing, we are planning our traditional reunion event. We will be inviting you to this special event in the Spring, and will be sending invitations in the New Year. Professor Deary and colleagues will present the exciting preliminary results, and members of the LBC team will be in attendance to talk about the research.

An exciting research development is our ability to measure to what extent the environment switches our genes on or off. We use a technique called genome-wide methylation for this, and we look forward to presenting these cutting-edge results to you in April.

The study continues… Though Wave 3 of testing has just drawn to a close, the team is already busy planning for the next wave! In Spring 2014, we will send out a short questionnaire booklet to all LBC1936 participants. This will further enrich the picture of cognitive ageing and wellbeing you have helped to build up over the years. We intend to begin Wave 4 testing in early autumn 2014 and look forward to seeing you again. For those of you who have recently come for testing, we may not be seeing you for two years yet. If you have moved house, or are about to do so, please update your address so we can keep in touch using the contact details at the end of this newsletter. We will be conducting the usual thinking and medical tests. For those of you who can, we shall repeat the brain scans. And there will be an optional new aspect to the project. We shall ask if some of you are interested in letting us know about your physical activity in a typical week.

Season’s Greetings

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study – Christmas 2013

Latest Results Our scientific publications increase year upon year, all thanks to your direct contribution. Over 30 papers analysing the LBC1936 have been published in 2013, with almost 20 more in press so far; many appear in the world’s top scientific journals. Three highlights of this year’s published work are summarised below. A selected list of scientific papers from 2013 can be found at the end of this newsletter. Earlier in 2013, our research led by Sherif Karama was published in the leading international journal Molecular Psychiatry. LBC1936 members with thicker grey matter (the outer layer of the brain) tended to have better scores on tests of important types of thinking skill. However, once cognitive ability scores from age 11 were accounted for, the association between thicker grey matter in the brain and cognitive ability in old age almost disappeared. Importantly, cognitive ability in childhood was a strong predictor of the brain’s grey matter thickness over 60 years later! This shows that, although the brain’s grey matter thickness is indicative of thinking skills in later life, these may be mostly determined by factors that can be measured as early as age 11. We also note a publication in Molecular Psychiatry in February this year led by Andrew McIntosh. The analysis suggested that individuals in the LBC1936 with more genes that have been linked to schizophrenia in other people are more likely to see a fall in their thinking skills as they age, even though none have actually developed the condition. This research provides clues as to the genetically-driven biological mechanisms that could cause differences in the rate of people’s cognitive ageing. Janie Corley led our team in testing whether dietary patterns influence thinking skills in old age. They found that a Mediterranean-style diet in later life was

associated with better cognitive performance, whereas a more traditional-style diet (e.g. high in salt, fat and carbohydrates) was linked with poorer performance. However, this dietary pattern was largely influenced by childhood cognitive ability and socioeconomic status. In other words, better early cognition led to different dietary patterns being adopted in later life. However, there was some evidence that a healthy diet has some modest independent effect on later life thinking skills too. The paper will be published in International Psychogeriatrics. LBC Centre-Stage at Medical Research Council Centenary Celebrations The Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE) provides administrative and scientific support to the LBC studies. CCACE put on an open day in June as part of the MRC Centenary Celebrations, which saw a Brain Maze with a series of interactive experiments set up in 10 rooms in the Psychology Department. Each room dealt with a different aspect of cognitive ageing research within CCACE, such as genetics, brain imaging and cognitive testing. Navigating through 10 “decades”, visitors followed the story of Ms Alexa Purves, an LBC1921 member and now, at the age of 92 in the 10th decade of her life. The games were often based on findings from LBC research and the data we have collected from you!

Find out about the Brain Maze

here: http://youtu.be/JHxi2RGrdP4

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study – Christmas 2013

CCACE also held a very successful sell-out Grand Debate introduced by Ian Deary and chaired by broadcaster Sally Magnusson. Almost 500 people attended (including many from the Lothian Birth Cohort) as “youth” Kyle Thornton (President of the Scottish Youth Parliament) and CCACE member Dr Susan Shenkin argued that the “Wisdom of Age Trumps the Speed of Youth”. Opposing was MP Sir Tam Dalyell and CCACE member Dr Tom Russ. We shall not spoil the debate by telling you which side triumphed. You can still see it for yourself. The full video of the debate is available to view online at: http://youtu.be/_5naEFwmqYs?a

Professor Ian Deary (centre) with broadcaster Sally Magnusson and MP Sir Tam Dalyell (right) at the MRC Centenary debate. Spreading the Word The LBC1936 team has continued to report the latest results from the study at international meetings and conferences, through media and in guides for healthcare professionals.

Corresponding with the 66th anniversary of initial LBC1936 testing, BBC medical correspondent Adam Brimelow spoke to Ian Deary, Alison Pattie and LBC1936 participant Thomasina Wallace for a BBC Radio 4 segment and an article about the origins of the LBC1936 study and its implications for healthy ageing. The full article can be found on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22767016)

Alison Pattie (right) and Ina Wallace on the BBC

Health news website.

An important milestone this year was Age UK’s publication of the first-ever comprehensive guide for healthcare professionals, care-givers and public policy-makers on the evidence-based needs of people age 80 and over, called Improving Later Life: Understanding the Oldest Old. With chapters written by many world-leading experts, including our own Professors Ian Deary and John Starr, the book has attracted widespread interest with features in BBC Health News online, Channel 4 News, and the British Medical Journal. The chapter discusses the findings of the LBC studies and their impact on understanding changes in people’s thinking skills over time. This guide can be accessed online: www.ageuk.org/oldest

Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker (author of several best-sellers including How The Mind Works) visited Professor Deary in May this year to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lecture and to discuss the work on cognition arising from the Scottish Mental Surveys, including the Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1921 and 1936. Professor Pinker found the genetic and brain imaging research particularly interesting.

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study – Christmas 2013

Professor Ian Deary (right) meets with Steven Pinker to discuss LBC research.

Our findings from the study are well-travelled, with several of the team taking our results to high-profile international conferences. Professor Joanna Wardlaw attended the International Stroke Conference in Honolulu, USA in February where she presented work on "Association between Blood Pressure, Internal Carotid Artery Flow Parameters and Age-Related White Matter Disease".

At the 1st World Congress on Personality in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Drs Tom Booth, René Mõttus, and Alan Gow 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. Presenting findings miles away from Lothian shows just how far-reaching and informative the LBC studies are.

In April, Ian Deary presented LBC1936 research at the British Neuroscience Association in London, describing the genetic, biomedical, psychosocial, and lifestyle factors that his team had found to

be related to protection from deleterious cognitive ageing.

Staff News This year we have said goodbye to several valued colleagues, and welcomed some new faces to the team as well. Benjamin Aribisala (who worked on analysing your brain scans) was awarded a professorship at Lagos State University, Nigeria. Natalie Royle (who also analysed your brain scans!) will be leaving us at the end of the year. Researchers Tom Booth and René Möttus will have both taken up lectureships in the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh by the end of 2013. Benjamin, René and Tom have been prolific contributors to the ever-increasing list of scientific papers, and will continue to collaborate on LBC research. We wish them well in their new positions.

We are pleased to welcome Dr Riccardo Marioni to the team. He recently won a prestigious University of Edinburgh Chancellor’s Fellowship. He will be researching the genetic influences on cognitive ageing in the LBC1936 among other datasets.

We have also said goodbye to our MRI coordinators for the LBC1936 study, Emily Smart and Donald Lyall; many of you will have spoken to one of them to arrange your brain scan. Donald successfully completed his PhD this summer and has taken up a postdoctoral position at the National Institute of Aging, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore USA. Emily Smart recently graduated and secured a job as an Assistant Psychologist at the Astley Ainslie Hospital in Edinburgh.

Finally, we bid a (temporary) goodbye to Dr Dominika Dykiert who has recently gone on maternity leave. We wish her all the best for the next while and look forward to meeting baby Dykiert number 2 before too long! We welcome Stuart

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study – Christmas 2013

Ritchie, who is ably continuing the research in Dominika’s absence.

Your Stories The team are collaborating with a writer, portrait artist and film-maker to bring the stories of the Lothian Birth Cohort studies to life. In LBC Lifetimes, author Ann Lingard has written a series of short stories about the lives and influences of the participants and scientists from the LBC studies. In every case they bring an aspect of the research to life in its human context. These stories have now been published online, and you can read them all at: www.lbclifetimes.org

The team are also privileged to be working with the renowned portrait artist Fionna Carlisle on ‘Facing Age: Portrait of an Intelligent Scotland’. Fionna spends many hours bringing LBC members’ personalities and a lifetime of experience out in her portraits. Fionna has completed 6 thus far, and with support from CCACE will now be able to complete a total of 15-20. She and CCACE are currently in dialogue with a major national gallery about a potential exhibition of these works.

LBC member Tam Young by Fionna Carlisle (detail).

Filmmaker Anne Milne is currently working on a short film ‘The Ageing Brain’ which will contain interviews with some LBC members and scientists. It is hoped that the film will be shown at

national and international science and film festivals once completed.

And finally… Do you remember the Excelsior Ballroom? Now one of the University of Edinburgh’s Museums, the history of St Cecilia’s Hall in the Cowgate is the subject of interest for our colleagues in the Centre for Research Collections. Very little information is available on what the hall was like between 1939 and 1958. They only have one photo from this period and are keen to hear if any LBC1936 members can share their stories. It is known that Miss Magdalene Cairns – the owner at the time – turned it into a palais de danse, with the former Concert Room being turned into the very popular Excelsior Ballroom. Decorated in full-blown Art Deco style, it is thought to have flourished during the 40s and 50s. If you have any memories or photos of attending the ballroom during this period, please contact Serena Frederick who would be very grateful to hear from you:

Serena Fredrick Centre for Research Collections Main Library University of Edinburgh George Square Edinburgh EH8 9LJ e-mail: serena.fredrick@ed.ac.uk Tel: 0131 651 1438

Merry Christmas, and best

wishes for a happy New Year.

Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study – Christmas 2013

Thanks again By continuing to participate in the LBC1936 you are helping us to understand more about how our thinking skills change over time, and the factors that might slow these changes. Thanks, from all of the LBC1936 research team. We look forward to seeing you in 2014 and beyond.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Ian J. Deary,

Study Director;

Mrs Janie Corley,

Dr Dominika Dykiert

Mrs Alison Pattie,

Miss Adele Taylor

Research Associates;

Dr Simon Cox,

Study Co-ordinator;

Mr Paul Redmond,

Database Manager;

Miss Emily Smart

Research Assistant

The LBC1936 study benefitted from work by Research Assistant Callum Smith and Volunteer Research Assistants Emma Niemmen and Fanny Tangen.

Would you like to talk to us?

You can contact us at: Lothian Birth Cohort 1936,

University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ. Telephone: 0131 651 1681

(Adele Taylor) Email: lbc1936@ed.ac.uk

Do, please, let us know if there is any change to your address.

www.lothianbirthcohort.ed.ac.uk

Research publications The full references for some of the most recent research publications from 2013 are given below. Please get in touch if you would like a copy of any of these articles.

Booth et al. (2013). Brain white matter tract integrity and cognitive abilities in community-dwelling older people: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. Neuropsychology, 27, 595-607

Corley et al. (in press). Do dietary patterns influence cognitive function in old age? International Psychogeriatrics

Gow et al. (2013). What social network or support factors best predict cognitive abilities in old age? Gerontology, 59, 454-463.

Karama et al. (in press). Childhood cognitive ability accounts for associations between cognitive ability and brain cortical thickness in old age. Molecular Psychiatry.

Laude et al. (2013). Retinal nerve fiber layer thickness and cognitive ability in older people: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study. BMC Ophthalmology, 13:28.

McIntosh et al. (2013). Polygenic risk for Schizophrenia is associated with cognitive change between childhood and old age. Biological Psychiatry 73, 938-943.

Mõttus et al. (2013). Diabetes and life-long cognitive ability. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 3, 275-278.

Ritchie et al. (in press). Education is associated with higher later-life IQ scores, but not with faster cognitive processing speed. Psychology and Aging.