Presenter : Suzanne Tyas, PhD
Associate Professor
School of Public Health and Health Systems
University of Waterloo

Title

Early-life factors and late-life cognition: What nuns can teach us about why some people develop dementia while others do not

Abstract
This presentation will discuss the impact of early-life factors on the risk of developing dementia. The Nun Study presents a unique opportunity to investigate predictors of dementia across the life course. This internationally recognized study has followed religious sisters aged 75+ years with annual cognitive assessments during life and brain donation after death, and linked these data with the convent archives, which provide a rich source of early-life data. The very different lives of the nuns in childhood and adolescence contrast with very similar adult lives in the convent, markedly enhancing our ability to detect early-life influences on late-life disease.

Bio

Suzanne Tyas, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Tyas’s research program focuses on early- and late-life predictors of the spectrum of cognition in aging, encompassing cognitive impairment, cognitive reserve and healthy aging. She is a neuroepidemiologist specializing in longitudinal studies of cognitive aging, such as the Nun Study. Dr. Tyas has been an investigator with the Nun Study since 2000. Her research with the Nun Study has been supported by national and international funding agencies, including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Alzheimer’s Association, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.