Research on Exercise and Wellness Colloquium Series
This presentation will review the relationship between brain structure and function and emphasize the underlying age-related decline in mobility and cognition. Some potential therapeutic interventions to slow functional decline will also be discussed.
Research on Exercise and Wellness Colloquium Series Consider this an open invitation to the next colloquium Friday, October 31, 2014 From 2:00—3:30 p.m. in Simmons Hall, Room 138 Dr. Sushmita Purkayastha Assistant Professor Applied Physiology and Wellness Simmons School of Education & Human Development Title: Aging and Brain Health: The Link Between Brain Structure and Function |
About the Talk Abstract
Although an inevitable process, aging shares common etiologies with vascular diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Impairments in brain blood flow regulation is linked to decline in brain structural integrity and function. This presentation will review the relationship between brain structure and function and emphasize the underlying age-related decline in mobility and cognition. Some potential therapeutic interventions to slow functional decline will also be discussed.
About Sushmita Purkayastha
Dr. Purkayastha was a Research Fellow at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA.
Her research interest is focused on cerebral blood flow regulation in humans and she has expertise in transcranial doppler ultrasound and non-invasive beat-to-beat blood pressure measurement and analyses techniques used for assessment of cerebral vessel function. Dr. Purkayastha recently completed a NIH T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for Translational research in Aging at the Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Dr. Purkayastha obtained her Masters degree in Exercise Physiology at the University of Texas at Arlington. She then graduated with a PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences from the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. Dr. Purkayastha's goal is to design effective therapeutic interventions interrupting the decline in cognition and mobility in aging and diseases associated with vascular risk factors such as hypertension.
For more information, email Dr. Lynn Romejko Jacobs at lromejko@smu.edu.