Archives January 2024

ARGO’s very own Dr. Thomas Kraynak wrote an article for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. See below for an excerpt:

I wish I could have scanned my Grandma Kraynak’s brain before she died. Most people in their seventies and beyond tend to experience memory and other cognitive problems, or even develop dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. But not my Grandma Kraynak. She was mentally quick all the way up to her rather sudden death at age 98. Even in her final years, she could regularly outwit us younger folk in any argument.

After Grandma Kraynak’s passing — yes, our family referred to our late grandparents by their last names, which I have now learned is odd — I wondered why she enjoyed such an active mind and livelihood well into her nineties, unlike so many other people her age. She wasn’t rich, and she didn’t take lots of medications.

So what factors contributed to her being able to live a fulfilled and vibrant life well into her nineties, to be a so-called “healthy ager”?

Read more

Anxiety disorders are prevalent in late life, with symptoms including severe (uncontrollable) worry and rumination. Late-life anxiety, worry, and rumination in the context of the aging brain can be associated with differences in volume and thickness of gray matter regions in the brain, as well as altered functional connectivity in the networks involved in emotion generation and regulation, but these changes may differ by anxiety phenotypes. 

The investigators recruited 110 individuals aged 50 or older, who did or did not have anxiety and/or mood disorders, and assessed their worry severity and cognitive function. Participants underwent one MRI session.

Click here to read the original article posted on Pitt’s website, and here to read the published paper.