Guest Speaker: Dr. Adrian Owen
Sponsored by: McLeish Orlando
Speaker Bio:
Adrian M. Owen OBE, PhD is currently a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging in the Departments of Physiology & Pharmacology and Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He also directs the Brain, Mind, and Consciousness program funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and is on the Executive Committee of the CFREF funded initiative BrainsCAN at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Dr. Owen was previously the Assistant Director of the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at Western University. His research combines structural and functional neuroimaging with neuropsychological studies of brain-injured patients and has been published in many of the world’s leading scientific journals, including Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet. Adrian Owen is best known for showing that functional neuroimaging can reveal conscious awareness in some patients who appear to be entirely vegetative and can even allow some of these individuals to communicate their thoughts and wishes to the outside world. These findings have attracted widespread media attention on TV, radio, in print and online and have been the subject of many TV and radio documentaries. Dr. Owen has played multiple editorial roles, including 8 years as Deputy Editor of The European Journal of Neuroscience. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and chapters and a best-selling popular science book ‘Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death. Dr. Owen was recently awarded Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Honors List, 2019, for services to scientific research.
Description:
As the number of people recovering from the effects of COVID-19 infection continues to grow, it is becoming increasingly clear that many are experiencing ongoing cognitive challenges, including problems with memory, attention, reasoning and simple problem-solving. These issues could be caused by many aspects of COVID-19, from direct viral effects on the brain (such as neuroinflammation, stroke, and autoimmune responses), to indirect effects resulting from inflammation, blood clots, low oxygen levels, sedation and ventilation. Nevertheless, as the worldwide incidence rates of COVID-19 infection exceed 100M, many questions remain unanswered. First, are these cognitive deficits, where they occur, generalised or ‘domain-specific’; that is, do they affect certain cognitive systems more than others and, if so, which cognitive systems are most susceptible? Second, how does the emergence of cognitive deficits following COVID-19 infection relate to the severity of the primary infection? Third, in those patients who are most affected, are these cognitive disturbances temporary, permanent, or do they signal the onset of a neurodegenerative cascade that results in a deteriorating pattern of impairment over time? Fourth, how does the pattern of cognitive deficits observed following COVID-19 infection relate to other aspects of mental health such as anxiety, depression and fatigue that may be a consequence of the disease process itself, or a more general effect of living during the time of a global pandemic? In this talk, I hope to provide answers to some of these questions through the results of a large, online study of the cognitive sequelae of COVID-19 infection.