Dr. Nussbaum is a clinical neuropsychologist and national leader in Brain Health. He is cited frequently by the media and national press including the NY Times, Wall Street and USA Today. He is the recent winner of the 2007 American Society on Aging "Gloria Cavanaugh Award" for excellence in training and education in the field of aging. He is also the Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer at fitbrains.com
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found people with a high family risk of developing depression had less matter on the right side of their brains. The finding was similar to that found in brains with Alzheimer’s disease according to the researchers.
Brain scans revealed a 28% thinning in the right cortex in people who had a family history of depression compared with people who did not. Findings were based on scans of 131 people aged 6 to 54 with and without a family history of depression.
The thinning on the right side of the brain was only related to a family predisposition to depression. People who were actually depressed also had thinning on the left side of the cortex.
The authors suggest that having a thinner cortex may increase the risk of depression by disrupting a person’s ability to decode and recall social and emotional cues from other people. Subjects who had a thinner right cortex did less well on tests of memory and attention.
Findings suggest that a thinning right cortex relates to a predisposition to depression and to cognitive impairment.
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The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare.
Dr. Nussbaum has over 20 years experience working with aging adults and all stages of dementia. His current focus is educating the public on the miracle of the brain and how to keep it healthy. He lectures both nationally and internationally on the human brain, diseases of the brain, and brain health promotion and has published over 50 peer reviewed articles, as well as numerous chapters and books within the scientific community. Dr. Nussbaum is an adjunct Associate Professor in Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
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