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Adele Diamond | |
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Born | Adele Dorothy Diamond |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | |
Spouse | Donald Druin |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Developmental cognitive neuroscience |
Institutions | University of British Columbia |
Thesis | Behavior changes between 6 to 12 months of age: what can they tell us about how the mind of the infant is changing? (1983) |
Doctoral advisor | Jerome Kagan |
Website | www |
Adele Dorothy Diamond FRSC is a professor of neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, where she is currently a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. One of the pioneers in the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, Diamond researches how executive functions are affected by biological and environmental factors, especially in children. [1] [2] [3] [4] Her discoveries have improved treatment for disorders such as phenylketonuria and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, [5] [6] [7] and they have impacted early education. [8] [9] [10]
Diamond grew up in Brooklyn and Queens and attended public schools (PS 165, Parsons Junior High, and John Bowne High School). [11] She graduated from John Bowne High School as Valedictorian. [11]
She attended Swarthmore College on a four-year Swarthmore National Scholarship and graduated in 1975, majoring in Sociology-Anthropology and Psychology. [11] [12] She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with the highest honor in the course program of study. [11] While still at Swarthmore, in 1972, she attended the London School of Economics.
Diamond did her PhD graduate work at Harvard University (graduating in 1983), with a four-year NSF Graduate Fellowship and a three-year Danforth Graduate Fellowship. [12]
Although officially a PhD candidate in Psychology, she spent her first four years of graduate school working primarily in anthropology and sociology. [12] at the time the department was formally the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, which attempted to maintain interdisciplinary relationships between psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. [13] [14] At that time, Harvard had an NIMH-funded Pre-doctoral Training Program in Cross-Cultural Psychological Research and the program awarded Diamond three years of funding for her dissertation: one year to prepare to go into the field, one year to go anywhere in the world to do the research (she chose the South Pacific), and one year to write up the results. [12] Her thesis topic was "Is the need to be master of your fate intrinsically human or a product of Western culture?" [12] However, she didn't think she was coming up with a good way to study it and that the famous people advising her were not either. [12] They seemed not to be concerned, [12] saying, "Don't worry. You do great work." Not wanting to go and do poor science, Diamond abandoned the topic and returned the money for Years 2 and 3. [12]
Having given up her initial thesis topic, she returned to a question that Jerome Kagan had posed in Diamond's first year in graduate school: "If infants all over the world show the same cognitive changes at roughly the same time, those changes cannot be due entirely to learning or experience, because their experiences are too diverse; there must be a maturational component; what might that maturational component be?" [12] To answer that question, Diamond turned to neuroscience. [12]
Diamond hypothesized that maturational changes in the brain's prefrontal cortex made possible the impressive cognitive advances seen between 6 and 12 months of age. [12] At that time no one was studying the prefrontal cortex or any topic in cognitive neuroscience in the Harvard Psychology Department. [12] Diamond learned from books on her own and was granted permission to add Nelson Butters from the Boston VA (who had published widely on the anatomy and functions of prefrontal cortex) to her thesis committee. [12]
To get hard evidence on the brain to support her hypothesis, Diamond went to Yale University School of Medicine to work with Patricia Goldman-Rakic. [11] That work was supported by Sloan and NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards. [11]
Diamond organized a conference, “The Development and Neural Basis of Higher Cognitive Functions,” that brought together developmental psychologists, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists who were using the same behavioral paradigms but were unaware of that fact. The conference and resulting book served to jumpstart many research collaborations and the nascent field of developmental cognitive neuroscience. [15]
Diamond's team discovered a long-lasting visual deficit if children with phenylketonuria are not started on a low-phenylalanine diet within days of birth (the norm had been to start them within two weeks of birth). [16]
Her 2005 paper on the fundamental neurobiological and clinical differences between the inattentive-type ADHD and those ADHD types in which hyperactivity is present was titled "BADD (ADHD without hyperactivity), a neurobiologically and behaviorally distinct disorder from ADHD (with hyperactivity)". [17]
Much of Diamond's work has started with the premise that even though a child may appear incapable of doing or understanding something, if the question is posed differently or the concept taught in new ways, the child can succeed. Diamond illustrated this approach first with infants' understanding of the concept of contiguity, [18] [19] then with their ability to grasp abstract concepts, [20] [21] [22] and next with children's ability to succeed on a Stroop-like task requiring memory and inhibition. [23] [24] [25]
In 2009, Diamond was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, [26] and she received a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award (recognized nationally as an important award for women). [27]
In 2014, Diamond received the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contributions to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the American Psychological Association, [28] and she was recognized as one of the 15 most influential neuroscientists alive today. [29]
In 2015, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev conferred an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa) on Diamond. [30]
In 2019, Diamond's impact ranked in top 0.01% of scientists. [31]
In 2024, she will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree honoris causa from the University of Cambridge in the UK. [32]
She has held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair for more than ten years. [33]
Diamond's courses have received numerous positive reviews throughout her career. [34] [35] She has almost 600 invited addresses, including hundreds of keynote addresses and over 30 named lectures. [36] She has spoken in North America and abroad (including in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia [Bali & Java], Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and the UK [England, Scotland, and Wales]). [36]
Diamond has authored or co-authored about a hundred papers on her research work. Below are selected publications:
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Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily. It is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior. Working memory is often used synonymously with short-term memory, but some theorists consider the two forms of memory distinct, assuming that working memory allows for the manipulation of stored information, whereas short-term memory only refers to the short-term storage of information. Working memory is a theoretical concept central to cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by executive dysfunction occasioning symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple contexts, and otherwise age-inappropriate.
Dopaminergic pathways in the human brain are involved in both physiological and behavioral processes including movement, cognition, executive functions, reward, motivation, and neuroendocrine control. Each pathway is a set of projection neurons, consisting of individual dopaminergic neurons.
Cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS) is an attention syndrome characterised by prominent dreaminess, mental fogginess, hyperactivity, sluggishness, slow reaction time, staring frequently, inconsistent alertness, and a slow working speed. To scientists in the field, it has reached the threshold of evidence and recognition as a distinct syndrome.
In cognitive science and neuropsychology, executive functions are a set of cognitive processes that are necessary for the cognitive control of behavior: selecting and successfully monitoring behaviors that facilitate the attainment of chosen goals. Executive functions include basic cognitive processes such as attentional control, cognitive inhibition, inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Higher-order executive functions require the simultaneous use of multiple basic executive functions and include planning and fluid intelligence.
Developmental cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary scientific field devoted to understanding psychological processes and their neurological bases in the developing organism. It examines how the mind changes as children grow up, interrelations between that and how the brain is changing, and environmental and biological influences on the developing mind and brain.
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Patricia Goldman-Rakic was an American professor of neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry and psychology at Yale University School of Medicine. She pioneered multidisciplinary research of the prefrontal cortex and working memory.
F. Xavier Castellanos is a Bolivian neuroscientist who is the director of research at the NYU Child Study Center. His work aims at elucidating the neuroscience of ADHD through structural and functional brain imaging studies, collaborating on molecular genetic studies, and coordinating an interdisciplinary network of translational investigators. Dr. Castellanos chaired the NIH ‘Initial Review Group’ on Developmental Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities from 2005–2007 and is chairing the revision of the diagnostic criteria for externalizing disorders for the forthcoming edition of DSM-V, projected for 2012. He continues to make significant contributions to research into the neurobiological substrates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
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In psychology and neuroscience, executive dysfunction, or executive function deficit, is a disruption to the efficacy of the executive functions, which is a group of cognitive processes that regulate, control, and manage other cognitive processes. Executive dysfunction can refer to both neurocognitive deficits and behavioural symptoms. It is implicated in numerous psychopathologies and mental disorders, as well as short-term and long-term changes in non-clinical executive control. Executive dysfunction is the mechanism underlying ADHD paralysis, and in a broader context, it can encompass other cognitive difficulties like planning, organizing, initiating tasks and regulating emotions. It is a core characteristic of ADHD and can elucidate numerous other recognized symptoms.
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Katya Rubia is a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre and Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, both part of the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.
Adriana Galván is an American psychologist and expert on adolescent brain development. She is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she directs the Developmental Neuroscience laboratory. She was appointed the Jeffrey Wenzel Term Chair in Behavioral Neuroscience and the Dean of Undergraduate Education at UCLA.
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