Lis Nielsen, Ph.D.

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NIA/IPSR Workshop Advancing Integrative
Psychological Research on Adaptive and Healthy
Aging

• Lis Nielsen, Ph.D.
• Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR)
• National Institute on Aging
• nielsenli_at_nia.nih.gov

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Background

• APS 2008 Workshop on Entering into Aging
  Research
• Related Meetings
• NIA Workshop on Neuroeconomics of Aging and
  Social Neuroscience of Aging
• NIA/ESRC Meeting on Social Neuroscience of
  Aging Bridging Laboratory and Survey Science to
  Advance Study of Social and Economic Behavior in
  Aging
• NIA Workshops on Allostatic Load and Stress,
  Aging, the Brain and the Body

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NIA/BSR Areas of Emphasis

• Health Disparities
• Aging Minds
• Increasing Health Expectancy
• Health, Work, and Retirement
• Interventions and Behavior Change
• Genetics, Behavior, and the Social Environment
• The Burden of Illness the Efficiency of Health
  Systems

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Cross-cutting Principles
Aging from Birth to Death Life Course
Perspectives Biobehavioral Linkages
Collaboration with other NIA Programs Integration
and Synthesis Multi-level Interactions Among
Psychological, Physiological, Social Cultural
Levels Development of Improved Methodologies
Measurement Translation Application of
Findings
 
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2008 BSR Quadrennial Review

• Alan Garber and John Cacioppo (Co-Chairs)
• Subcommittees Included
• Social Neuroscience Neuroeconomics
• Psychology of Aging
• Behavioral and Population Genetics
• Behavioral Economics and Community Interventions
• Health Disparities
• Cognitive Interventions
• Sattelites to National Health Accounts Measuring
  Time Use, Well-being, Experience of Death
• .

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Review Recommendations

• Emphasize integrative science and multilevel
  analyses
• Promote studies that adopt a life course
  perspective
• Encourage team science and promote new training
  opportunities
• Analyses that integrate multiple levels of
  inquiry, ranging from genes, to biomarkers to
  neural systems to behaviors, are critical for
  elucidating pathways linking social behaviors and
  social environments to age-related outcomes and
  ultimately, for guiding interventions.

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Psychology of Aging Panel Recommendations

• The most innovative research in psychology
  crosses traditional subdisciplines within the
  field
• focuses on the ways in which social, emotional,
  and cognitive factors interact to influence the
  ways that people live their lives e.g., how they
  make decisions, respond to stress, maintain
  important relationships, regulate strong
  emotions, and how these efforts affect their
  physical health.
• The best research is addressing these issues at
  multiple levels (from genes to brain systems to
  behavior) and is blurring the traditional
  boundaries of cognitive, social, and personality
  research.

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Psychology of Aging Panel Recommendations

• Needed are
• Studies that help to improve adaptive functioning
  of individuals in their daily environments and
  identify causal mechanisms that contribute to
  their resilience and
• Infrastructure support in the form of center
  grant support and innovative training mechanisms,
  including short-term intensive workshops that
  complement the institutional training awards
  (T32).

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Social Neuroscience Neuroeconomics Panel
Recommendations

• The effectiveness and role of social
  relationships, emotion reasoning, and emotional
  regulation across the lifespan and the influence
  of social and emotional factors in social
  behavior, decision making, and health
• The way that genetic expression or age-related
  changes in the central nervous system affect
  social cognition, emotion, and economic decision
  making across the lifespan
• Better integration of social neuroscience and
  neuroeconomics with behavioral intervention
  research to improve understanding of how
  incentives influence behavior change.

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Current InitiativesIBP

• Neuroeconomics and decision making
• Social Neuroscience of Aging
• Cognitive Interventions
• Mechanisms of Behavior Change
• Integrating genetics into behavioral models
• Psychosocial Stress and Allostatic Load
• Measuring Well-being
• Early life determinants of late life outcomes

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Workshop Goals

• Bring together researchers who are relatively new
  to aging with leaders in psychology of aging
  research and related fields to encourage greater
  focus on issues of relevance to the NIA Mission
• Continue and advance dialogues begun at recent
  meetings

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Workshop Goals

• Encourage consideration of how to advance study
  of adaptive and healthy aging using integrative
  approaches bridging psychology and other
  disciplines
• Encourage cross-talk between scientists studying
  social and emotional function, psychological and
  biological processes in health, and decision
  making
• Identify key opportunities and needs for
  advancing the science in each domain

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Workshop Goals

• Encourage consideration of how to advance study
  of adaptive and healthy aging using integrative
  approaches bridging psychology and other
  disciplines
• Encourage cross-talk between scientists studying
  social and emotional function, psychological and
  biological processes in health, and decision
  making
• Identify key opportunities and needs for
  advancing the science in each domain

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Questions for Panels

• How can this research help to advance study of
  adaptive and healthy aging, specifically to
  improve adaptive functioning of individuals in
  their daily environments and identify causal
  mechanisms that contribute to their resilience?
• What are the most immediately viable translation
  opportunities across domains represented here
  (1) studies of social and emotional function (2)
  psychological and biological processes in health
  (3) decision making and behavior change?
• What are the next critical challenges your field
  needs to tackle?

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Questions for Panels

• Advancing study of adaptive and healthy aging?
• Translation opportunities across domains?
• Next critical challenges in your field?