Every day in the laboratories of Duke University Medical Center, Brenda Plassman uses the critical thinking and writing skills she developed at Wittenberg in her quest to unlock some of the secrets behind Alzheimer’s Disease.

Since 1989, Plassman, associate research professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and her Duke colleagues have devoted hours to understanding more about this brain disease, which affects about four million Americans and 18 million people worldwide.

Plassman is currently conducting two longitudinal, epidemiological studies on Alzheimer’s funded by the National Institutes of Health. The first, which uses male twin WWII veterans, investigates the extent to which genetic and non-genetic factors contribute to getting the disease. The second builds on a University of Michigan study as it examines memory impairment and dementia in a nationally representative sample of elderly Americans.

“Studies like ours provide opportunities for examining many research questions,” said Plassman, whose team has already reported several significant findings.

For example, it found that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications may have a protective effect in delaying or preventing Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, it found that WWII twin veterans who sustained a head injury during their military service had a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia some 50 years later compared to those who had not incurred a head injury.

“Both of these studies suggest that there may be serious long-term consequences of head injury that were previously unknown.”

Always interested in psychology, Plassman said she knew she wanted to pursue graduate work when she arrived at Wittenberg.

“The faculty members served as great examples of the skills and abilities needed to pursue a career in academia,” she said. “I received a background in all aspects of psychology, which provided the foundation for the work I do now.” — Whitney Lehman ’04