NIA/ESRC Inter-disciplinary Workshop on Social Neuroscience
London, 14th and 15th July 2008
MEETING NOTES
Participants:Prof.Mel Bartley (University College London, UK)
Prof. David Blane (Imperial College, London, UK)
Prof. John Bond (Newcastle University, UK)
Prof. David Bunce (Brunel University, UK)
Prof. John Cacioppo (University of Chicago, US)
Ms Michelle Dodson (Economic and Social Research Council, UK)
Prof. Mary Gilhooly (Brunel University, UK)
Prof. Felicia Huppert (University of Cambridge, UK)
Dr. Meena Kumari (University College London, UK)
David Laibson (Harvard University, US)
Prof. Michael Lamb (University of Cambridge, UK)
Prof. Robert Levenson (University of California, Berkeley, US)
Prof. Robert Logie (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Prof. Walter Mischel (Columbia University, US)
Prof. Kevin Morgan (Loughborough University, UK)
Dr. Lis Nielsen (National Institute on Aging, US)
Dr. Louise Phillips (University of Aberdeen, UK)
Prof. Jim Stevenson (University of Southampton, UK)
Dr. Richard Suzman (National Institute on Aging, US)
Prof. Shelley Taylor (UCLA, US)
Prof. Lorraine Tyler (University of Cambridge, UK)
Dr. Carien van Reekum (University of Reading, UK)
Prof. Linda Waite (University of Chicago, US)
Prof. Alan Walker (University ofSheffield, UK)
Dr. David Weir (University of Michigan, US).
MEETING NOTES
14th July 2008
To start the meeting there was a short introduction by Alan Walker (UK co-chair) including potential positive outcomes from this workshop:
-encourage multi- and interdisciplinary research on ageing
-foster groundbreaking research on ageing
-support cross-national collaboration
Liz Nielsen (US co-chair) from the NIA also give a short introduction and reiterated the goals of the workshop: comparing UK/USA neuroscience research, making advances, bridging expertise, outlining gaps in knowledge, increasing the potential for cross-national collaboration and locating obstacles that may have to be overcome in the future. Liz also mentioned that recommendations from the previous NIA meeting included capitalising on longitudinal studies, new approaches to ageing research, the use of ageing-relevant experimental paradigms, the need to attract researchers outside normal ageing studies and the need for an increase in original applications.
Richard Suzman also gave an introduction highlighting a number of topics:
-NIA are interested in good social behavioural research and ageing can then be applied to this topic
-A need to follow up after this meeting and create long term collaborations between US and UK researchers across disciplines.
-Create a new scientific community that can develop its own data pool and work collaboratively, including exporting ideas from one country to another e.g. Health and Retirement Study and cohort work.
-Transformative research projects that are paradigm creating/breaking on topics such as the science of behavioural change need to be put forward for calls of papers, preferably from US and UK teams working collaboratively.
Social Neuroscience of Ageing: Directions for Ageing Research
John Cacioppo – Social Neurosciences and Loneliness
There have been massive advances recently in the field of molecular biology and these could have benefits for the study of ageing and neuroscience. John spoke about the connected collective through models and metaphors of society and the brain. The advantage being that the brain and communication can be understood better through using collective abilities. This can be displayed through neural mechanisms and promoting parity which leads to a greater understanding of social methods such as mimicking others (resonate synchronisation).
This relates to solidarity and its obvious links to a lack of communication that can impact negatively on individuals and the pity society can feel for them in their loneliness. The notion of perceived isolation can be linked to the study of ageing as people become more isolated as their social networks break down over time and lead to communication difficulties. There are many medical/biological and psychological examples of perceived social isolation e.g. an increase in the development of Alzeimer’s disease.
Loneliness
Depression
Worsening of immune system
After prolonged periods leads to an affect on blood pressure and cortisol production.
Causes of this chain include the need for people to ‘belong to a tribe’ (E.O.Wilson) and how this changes with age. This relates to many ageing-related research topics such as rural isolation, an increase in the detrimental affects of ageing and problems with communication. This form of social neuroscience is challenging older perceptions of studying isolation.
Louise Phillips – Laboratory Studies in the Social Neuroscience of Ageing: Key Questions, Findings and Research Needs.
Louise opened her talk with the point that there is a lack of reputation in the field of social neuroscience of ageing (SONA) and this needs to be addressed.
Key influences on SONA:
-Social cognition e.g. gaze following
-Social and affective neuroscience
-Social and cultural influences on the ageing process
The idea is to pull together these strands for the key applications of SONA:
-Social behaviour relationships
-Mental and physical health
-Cognitive change with age
-Interactions with environment
Louise spoke about the developments in neuroscience of various brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex and superior temporal sv/cvs and how they relate to social behaviour. These do change with age (neural functioning). This has significance for the understanding and measurement of emotional perception and experiments including methods such as face reading were discussed in relation to ageing and impairment e.g. dementia, stroke, Parkinson’s disease.
Cognitive function is not simply causing problems with emotional perception so other factors are at work here. This leads to the increased importance of neuroscience perceptions e.g. younger people rely on more emotional decisions whereas older people use logic and this relates to different parts of the brain and their lack of activity. This has a massive impact on social functioning and quality of life in old age and shows old age is not just a demonstration of a lack or decline in cognitive function.
Therefore social neuroscience has to identify links between different levels of analysis, provide a more holistic picture of ageing changes and generate new hypotheses.
Questions to address include:
-Do changes in the social brain with age influence interpersonal perception?
-What is the pattern of age-related change in empathy-precursors and consequences?
-How do cognitive and neural factors interplay with loneliness?
-Do brain changes with age influence the distinction between representation of self and other?
These could be addressed through the separation of research funding into more diverse topics such as behaviour, biological factors and social ones.
What do we need to do?
-challenge stereotypes
-not adhere to the idea that this is not ‘proper science’
-overcome the divide between positive ageing and cognitive decline
-engage with user groups
-increase the use of multidisciplinary research to cross boundaries
-change sampling methods to include more participants
-increase the use of basic science
Discussion on this topic lasted 15 minutes.
Biological Pathways and Mechanisms
Shelley Taylor - How does early environment affect health across the lifespan and how are emotion regulation skills and social support/isolation implicated in these processes?
Shelley talked about how early environment can impact on later life ageing processes. She linked this initially to genetics and brain activity but there was a social element to her biological findings.
Multilevel data and an increased understanding of interplay and processes will help us disseminate and understand these questions. There needs to be an increase in collaboration between, for example, CARDIA, MIDAS, FMRI and genetics.
A study of genes and brain activity in relation to this topic is vital for future research and understanding. A list of genes has been discovered/developed in recent years and includes those linked to genetic expression, which are affected by early environment and nurtuant social behaviour.
John Cacioppo – Genes and Behaviour
John Cacioppo led a discussion on genes and behaviour centring on how environmental impact can affect gene development and brain behaviour. One example is how lonely people react to pictures of people more than objects because of the need for social interaction and connection. There was also a point made that stressors (including acute and chronic stress) can actually benefit people e.g. exercise can be a stressor but also beneficial.
David Blane – West of Scotland Lifecourse Study
David introduced the West of Scotland study that includes monitoring and measuring health indicators such as blood pressure and lung function and relating it to social class. He discussed the findings of the study including how all social behaviour must be contextualised socially, how adult class boundaries can be affected by physiological differences (bad health in lower social class over the lifecourse) and how emotional disruption at a young age (deprived) can set off a social trajectory to certain high risk jobs which can lead to an increase in blood pressure.
The lifecourse perspective is essential in disseminating this data and makes it more useful to a variety of researchers. David urged researchers to prioritise topics where there has been recent massive change. This includes the increase in life expectancy over the last century in relation to the pension crisis and long term ill health and care. There are lots of theories but not enough research being funded. He also highlighted the need to differentiate between the different stages of ageing such as quality of life in the early old and the oldest old. Neuroscience can be applied to these topics and how functional MRI scanning is an important method to consider.
Meena Kumari – ELSA and Y2 Studies
Meena spoke about how some longitudinal studies already taking place in the UK could benefit the study of social neuroscience. These include ELSA and Y2 which have over 10,000 participants. This interdisciplinary approach links to one of the goals of the workshop.
Different data has been collected to answer questions such as how the social environment gets under the skin e.g. social interaction, health over time etc. Social neuroscience can link to this as it will help to create a common understanding relating to an individual.
This led to a discussion that included the following topics:
-Childhood SES and BP factors relating to different neurobiological pathways
-Ante-natal nutrition in relation to neuroscience and ageing
-Racial differences and relating this cultural social difference to negative health aspects and a change in neural state. This would then affect outcomes such as alcohol consumption, smoking etc.
-What is healthy cognitive ageing and how can it be achieved? Survey and experimental lab work needs to come together to create interdisciplinary research, including work with lifecourse cohorts. How can targeted survey help fill the gap in UK lifecourse data?
-Lack of birth/death data available to researchers and issues of access.
-New promising approaches to the study of social cognitive differences and human characteristics. Personality and the ‘social’ being more ‘joined-up’ in modern research.
-Early life and how its study in relation to later life determinants is increasingly important. Including how studies are being undertaken to show how childhood diseases are studied over time (Banks).
Economic Behaviour, Socioeconomic Position and Ageing
David Laibson – Moving to Opportunity (1) and Financial Decision Making and Ageing (2)
1) David showed how government survey data is offering surprises in its results to economists and sociologists. One example is how one survey gave people vouchers to use to buy things in more affluent neighbourhoods and surprisingly it made little difference to these people at all. This lack of affect either socially or psychologically indicated a failure for the study but interesting outputs for researchers.
The US undertakes a lot of variant assignment research on a massive scale through government funding and it has proved useful in dispelling myths regarding economic and social theories. This random assignment research is expensive but helps to test data in a variety of ways. At present the UK does not use this type of research method on such a big scale but in light of how useful the US data has been it should be employed in the legislative process.
John Cacioppo opened a discussion on this topic with a point about how there needs to be a three-pronged attack on such experiments. There is a need for survey data, longitudinal data and the use of cross-sectional mass government research/experiments to justify funding long term. The group agreed that there needs to be an investment in research like this by the UK government not only to compete in international research but to create a new data pool to produce future legislation.
2) David presented to the group some data about how financial decision making can be affected by age. Two main results relating to age became apparent:
1 – The young and old pay increased interest rates as opposed to those people in middle age. They also do worse in negotiation processes with banks as they have less to stabilise them financially in the eyes of financial institutions
2 – Balance transfer rates were also affected by age as the old and young again are less likely to figure out the 0% interest offer on new credit cards. This is counter-productive unless you never use the card itself but older and younger people are less likely to be taken in and fail to not use the new card and therefore incur more debt.
If the peak for financial expertise and judgement is 53 years old then how can we use this marker for interventions?
As these two groups are the most exploited financially there is a gap in knowledge about whether this vulnerability is linked to biological, neuroscientific and societal factors, and if so how can we test this?
Walter Mischel – The Delay of Gratification Paradigm
This is a relevant psychological comparison to the societal problem of ageing as it affects each personality throughout their life and stats in early childhood.
Walter used an experiment conducted on six year olds in Chile and their reactions to being left with a choice over ringing a bell to get one cookie or waiting and being able to eat two. This experiment demonstrates how we all deal with the delay of gratification and what measures we take (or not take) to combat frustration. The experiment produced findings that led to identifying children who waited longer for two cookies have increased IQ. This experiment is useful in two ways:
1)We learn a lot about how people think about objects of desire. It can be easy or difficult for people to wait for pleasure but that waiting time or method of delay is important in understanding psychological and social factors relating to the subject.
2)This kind of work can be looked at longitudinally over the lifecourse with Walter reiterating how useful data from these children would be now they have grown up.
This can relate to ageing as it gives a glimpse of how, when older, individuals would react to avoiding the delay of gratification. This kind of study could also benefit hugely from the use of interdisciplinary methodology.
David Weir – Phenotypes and Economic Measures
David reported on economic well-being over the lifespan in relation to a variety of variables and using the HRS as an innovator.
Indicators such as trust, tolerance and patience are influencing peoples economic decision making skills. So the question is does this change with age and how do we measure this?
-Use experimental manipulation
-Hypothetical scenarios
-Conventional psychological assessment
This relates to a variety of factors including are people thinking through their financial decisions as much as they should? How does the delay of gratification paradigm fit into this? How does this relate the perception of socio-economic status (e.g. the ladder)? David urged researchers to focus more on where you are socioeconomically and then relate these factors to social relationships.
Mel Bartley – Social Class and Labour Force Exit
Over time people ejected from the labour force are not at an increased advantage even in light of health problems. Lower class people in ill health are ejected as are lower status people in relatively good health. This leads to an increase in employment and permanent sickness among lower class social groups. Inflation no longer follows an unemployment curve but the one relating to permanent sickness.
Policy is needed to address this balance and put healthy people back into the labour market if this is what they want. This also is relevant in relation to age discrimination and how many people who are in ill health and poor are not helped to get better or stay in employment. This then has a counterproductive effect of the economy and mass unemployment in relation to permanent illness.