Adam Woods
Associate Director | University of Florida
Gainesville, FL, UNITED STATES
Adam Woods’ work demonstrates that combining cognitive training with non-invasive brain stimulation can improve cognitive abilities.
Biography
Adam Woods is associate director for the Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory and an associate professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. His work demonstrates that combining treatments such as cognitive training with non-invasive brain stimulation can improve cognitive abilities, including working memory, attention and speed of processing and can lead to long-term improvement.
Areas of Expertise (4)
Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation
Cognitive Ageing
Brain Imaging
Dementia
Media Appearances (6)
Study: Video gaming may have some cognitive benefits for kids
CBS 4 News online
2022-11-04
A study by the National Institute of Health found that gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children. Researchers collected data from nearly 2,000 children and found those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control.
Understanding the Aging Brain
Florida Physician online
2017-05-27
“Age-related memory loss or decline in thinking and memory skills is normal — it’s what we expect, in fact,” says Adam Woods, PhD, an assistant professor of clinical and health psychology and assistant director of the Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory at the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute of UF.
Can we delay or prevent dementia?
UF News online
2017-01-13
Walking across the University of Florida’s Health Science Center campus, Adam Woods cites a sobering statistic. “By 2050, the U.S. population over the age of 65 will double,” he says. “We’re simply not set up as a society to house and treat an exponential growth of dementia patients. Economically, our healthcare system is unable to absorb that impact.”
Shifting the potential for cognitive aging
The Post online
2016-12-05
University of Florida researcher on aging Adam Woods, Ph.D., has been awarded a $6 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to investigate a method of augmenting cognitive training in older adults. Woods is assistant director of the Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory within the UF Institute on Aging and Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida.
Florida Researchers Receive $5.7 Million to Study Cognitive Training for Older Adults
Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health online
2016-10-12
University of Florida researchers have received a five-year, $5.7 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to study whether cognitive training paired with electrical stimulation to the brain can improve cognitive functioning in older adults. Led by principal investigators Drs. Adam Woods and Ronald Cohen of the UF College of Medicine, along with Dr. Michael Marsiske, an associate professor in the department of clinical and health psychology at the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions, the project is a multi-site collaboration among three McKnight Brain Institutes, located at the universities of Arizona, Florida and Miami.
Augmenting Cognitive Training in Older Adults: The “ACT Study”
On the Same Page online
2016-09-29
A few weeks ago, the National Institute on Aging announced that it would fund a UF grant application that would test the efficacy of certain methods designed to slow the process of age-associated memory loss and potentially prevent onset of dementia. This 5-year, $5.7 million grant is titled Augmenting Clinical Training in Older Adults: The “ACT Study.” The lead principal investigator is Adam Woods, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of aging and geriatric research at UF’s College of Medicine and assistant director of the Cognitive Aging and Memory Clinical Translational Research Program, known as CAM-CTRP. He is joined by two other PIs: Michael Marsiske, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of clinical and health psychology at UF’s College of Public Health and Health Professions, and Ronald Cohen, Ph.D., professor and Evelyn F. McKnight chair for clinical translational research in cognitive aging and director of the CAM-CTRP.
Articles (5)
Optimizing Chronic Pain Treatment with Enhanced Neuroplastic Responsiveness: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial
NutrientsSteven Pratscher, et al.
2021-05-05
Chronic pain affects mental and physical health and alters brain structure and function. Interventions that reduce chronic pain are also associated with changes in the brain. A number of non-invasive strategies can promote improved learning and memory and increase neuroplasticity in older adults. Intermittent fasting and glucose administration represent two such strategies with the potential to optimize the neurobiological environment to increase responsiveness to recognized pain treatments.
No risk of skin lesion or burn with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) using standardized protocols
Brain Stimulation: Basic, Translational, and Clinical Research in NeuromodulationGiuseppina Pilloni, et al.
2021-03-11
Maas and colleagues reported a single case of sustained cutaneous lesion (burn) following 10 daily sessions of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS, 2 mA × 20 min using a neuroConn constant current stimulator) . The skin lesion was reported under the cathode electrode which was placed on the right arm over the deltoid muscle (extracephalic position) using a large (7 × 5 cm) rubber electrode.
Dataset of prefrontal transcranial direct-current stimulation to improve early surgical knot-tying skills
Data in BriefRonak Patel, et al.
2021-03-06
Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) has previously demonstrated promising effects in improving surgical performance with motor region stimulation [1], [2], [3], [4]. However, extensive prior research has revealed an important role of the prefrontal cortex in surgical skill development [5,6]. This article presents the data of a double-blind randomized sham-controlled trial investigating the effect of prefrontal tDCS on knot-tying performance [7].
An fMRI study of age-associated changes in basic visual discrimination
Brain Imaging and BehaviorTalia R. Seider, et al.
2020-07-25
Clinical neuropsychology lacks tests of basic visuoperceptual and spatial skills that have well-controlled administration and sophisticated measurement methods. Items from the Visual Assessment Battery (VAB), a simultaneous match-to-sample task, assessed visual discrimination in 40 healthy adults aged 51–91 during fMRI. The tasks were designed to isolate discrimination of either location, shape, or velocity, and they each had three levels of difficulty.
Pain and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in Aging
Pain MedicineJosue Cardoso, et al.
2021-03-15
The present study aimed to determine whether specific cognitive domains part of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) are significantly lower in community-dwelling older adults with chronic pain compared with older adults without pain and whether these domains would be associated with self-reported pain, disability, and somatosensory function.
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