Optimizing Brain Health Across The Life Course

Brain health is increasingly attracting attention thanks to scientific and technological advances. Investing in brain health across the life course through education, access to health care, and healthy environments is essential for meeting modern societal challenges and driving innovation. However, there is no simple, direct or global metric to measure brain health across the life. Existing efforts to quantify for instance early-life brain health rely on proxy measures such as stunting and extreme poverty, account only for individual aspects of brain functioning and fail to include direct measures of brain structure. With the intent to overcome these shortfalls, WHO convened an interdisciplinary expert group in May 2023 to discuss the development of a brain health measurement framework with a focus on early life. Meeting attendees concluded that an ideal brain health metric would combine psychometrics, neuroimaging and neuro-modelling, incorporate important brain health determinants and be able to predict relevant outcomes later in life.

Stress and Brain Health: Across the Life Course, Volume 150, examines up-to-date knowledge on how stress effects brain health. The book's wide-ranging topics include the effects of pre-natal and childhood stress on neurodevelopment and aging. Chapters cover What is stress, how to measure it and effects on brain function, Pre-natal effects of stress on brain development and vulnerability, Stress in childhood, sensitive periods and regulatory mechanisms, The impact of childhood poverty on brain health, Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) on the brain, Stress, aging and epigenetics, The effects of chronic stress on the prefrontal cortex, Neurobiology of resilience to stress, and more. Comprises diverse evidence from world-leading researchers in each area Provides a readily accessible introduction to the topics covered, including basic guidance on stress theory and measurement Essential reading for those in the fields of neuroscience, psychophysiology, psychoneuroendocrinology, health psychology, developmental psychology, neuro-rehabilitation and clinical research

Brain health affects Americans across all ages, genders, races, and ethnicities. Enriching the body of scientific knowledge around brain health and cognitive ability has the potential to improve quality of life and longevity for many millions of Americans and their families. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that as many as 5 million Americans were living with Alzheimer's disease in 2014. That same year, more than 800,000 children were treated for concussion or traumatic brain injuries in U.S. emergency departments. Each year, more than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke. Developing more effective treatment strategies for brain injuries and illnesses is essential, but brain health is not focused exclusively on disease, disorders, and vulnerability. It is equally important to better understand the ways our brains grow, learn, adapt, and heal. Addressing all of these domains to optimize brain health will require consideration about how to define brain health and resilience and about how to identify key elements to measure those concepts. Understanding the interactions between the brain, the body, and socioenvironmental forces is also fundamental to improving brain health. To explore issues related to brain health throughout the life span, from birth through old age, a public workshop titled Brain Health Across the Life Span was convened on September 24 and 25, 2019, by the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice in the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

Lifestyle medicine is a practice which adopts evidence-based lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to prevent, treat, and reverse chronic diseases. The six main pillars of this specialty include physical activity, nutrition, stress resilience, cessation or risk reduction of substance use, quality sleep, and connectivity. Lifestyle Psychiatry: Through the Lens of Behavioral Medicine is grounded in the same pillars, drawing upon theories, methods, and empirical findings from health psychology and behavioral medicine. Lifestyle psychiatry is a rapidly emerging area within healthcare informed by rigorous research within the social and biological sciences, public health, and medicine. A volume in the Lifestyle Medicine series, this book uses a comprehensive biopsychosocial approach to prevent and treat psychiatric disorders and promote mental and physical well-being through evidence-based lifestyle interventions. Features: Draws upon theories, methods, and empirical findings from health psychology and behavioral medicine. Provides evidence-based research on the bi-directionality of mental and physical health. Addresses fundamental neuroscience concepts and applies them to practical aspects of lifestyle practices, mental health, and brain health. Appropriate for clinicians, primary care physicians, and those practicing in specialized areas, the information in this book provides users with practical tools to help explain, prevent, and treat psychiatric disorders and associated maladaptive health behaviors in patients.