Dr. Suzanne Segerstrom\, JoAnne Leonard Petersen Chair in Gerontology and Fami ly Studies at Oregon State University.
Aging\, Immunity\, and Cognition.
The aging immune system undergoes changes that have important implications for the brain and cognition. Although many questions in psychoneuroimmunolo gy treat immune function as an outcome\, when it comes to cognitive aging\, immunosenescence may be a key predictor. Several models describe how biolo gical risk including immunosenescence can affect cognition\, among them\, t he main-effects predisposition model and the moderated pathoplastic model ( e.g.\, by gender or personality). In the longitudinal Thought\, Stress\, an d Immunity study of healthy older adults\, we have examined the interaction s between immunological parameters – such as the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol\, the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6\, and latent infecti on – and cognitive parameters such as episodic memory\, executive functioni ng\, and self-regulation. Our findings show how immunological and cognitive aging may go hand in hand\, suggesting shared pathways of aging.
Dr. Suzanne C. Segerstrom\, PhD\, MPH\, is the JoA nne Leonard Petersen Chair in Gerontology and Family Studies at Oregon Stat e University. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from UCLA\, completed her clinical internship at Vancouver Hospital-UBC\, and later ea rned a master’s in public health (biostatistics) degree from University of Kentucky. She is known for her work on personality\, self-regulation\, and health as well as methodological contributions on reliable measurement and the consequences of mismeasurement in biomarkers such as cortisol. Her curr ent research focuses on interactions among psychological\, cognitive\, and immunological health in older adults.
Annually the Department o f Psychology hosts a Colloquia Series throughout the academic year. This exciting program br ings us together outside of the classroom to have conversations with the sp eakers we’ve invited to our campus to share their ideas. You’ll have the ch ance to hear from international speakers on a wide range of psychology res earch.
LOCATION:Douglas T. Kenny Building - Room 4001 GEO:49.263338;-123.253891 URL;VALUE=URI:https://psych.ubc.ca/events/event/colloquium-suzanne-segerstr om/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://psych.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/Suzanne-Segerstrom.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20251102T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR