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CCN Colloquium: "Delirium in Older Surgery Patients: A Cognitive Neuroscience, Neurobiological, and Multi-Organ System Perspective"

Photo of Leah Acker
Friday, March 08, 2024
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Leah Acker, PhD (Duke University)
CCN Colloquium

Delirium is the most common post-surgical complication among older adults. Despite its prevalence, delirium-an acute disorder of attention and arousal-can be devastating for patients as it increases the risk of Alzheimer's disease and death. This presentation will review what is known about delirium from a cognitive neuroscience and neurobiological perspective. It will also introduce the brain-heart-immune axis, a multi-system framework that we developed to characterize possible delirium vulnerability. Finally, our group has identified pre-surgery EEG patterns associated with resilient attentional control and diminished delirium severity after surgery. These new EEG data suggest that attentional control may play a critical role in neurocognitive resilience among older surgery patients.

Contact: Tiffany Scotton