Donald Stuss

Last updated
Donald Stuss
Born
Donald Thomas Stuss

(1941-09-26)September 26, 1941
DiedSeptember 3, 2019(2019-09-03) (aged 77)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Alma materUniversity of Ottawa
Known forStudies of the Frontal Lobes
AwardsGold Key Award American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (2014)
Donald O. Hebb Distinguished Contribution Award (2016)
Scientific career
Fields Neuropsychology
Institutions University of Ottawa,
University of Toronto,
Baycrest Centre, Toronto,
Ontario Brain Institute
Doctoral advisor Terence Picton

Donald Thomas Stuss OC, OOnt, FRSC, FCAHS (September 26, 1941 - September 3, 2019) was a Canadian neuropsychologist who studied the frontal lobes of the human brain. He also directed the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest from 1989 until 2009 and the Ontario Brain Institute from 2011 until 2016.

Contents

Life

Donald Stuss was born on September 26, 1941, in Sudbury, Ontario, and grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo. [1] [2] [3] After graduating from high school, he entered a monastery run by the Basilian Fathers in Mundare, Alberta. After 6 years of study and contemplation, he decided that he was better suited to a more active life and studied philosophy at the University of Ottawa. After several years of teaching he then returned to obtain his doctorate in psychology with Terence Picton at the University of Ottawa. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Aphasia Research Center in the Boston Veteran's Administration Hospital where he worked with Frank Benson, Harold Goodglass, and Edith Kaplan, before returning to the University of Ottawa in 1978. In 1989 he moved to Toronto to direct the new Rotman Research Institute established by Joseph Rotman to investigate the cerebral basis of memory and its disorders.[ citation needed ]

Research

While in Boston, Stuss worked with D. Frank Benson and other colleagues on an extensive study of the neuropsychological consequences of frontal leucotomy. The results of this investigation were published in a sequence of papers and then summarized in the 1986 book The Frontal Lobes. [4] This study triggered Stuss's lifelong interest in the human frontal lobes. [5] [6] In Boston he also started to work with the neurologist Mick Alexander. Their first study together concerned Capgras delusion, which causes a patient to believe that close family members have been replaced by imposters. Alexander et al. pointed out that this can be caused by a combination of frontal lobe damage (causing problems with familiarity) and right hemisphere dysfunction (causing problems with visual recognition). [7] The collaboration between Stuss and Alexander would continue productively for the next 40 years.

In Ottawa, Stuss became interested in the neuropsychological sequelae of traumatic brain injury. He realized that even though the patients did very well on structured tests, they found it difficult to set appropriate goals, plan real-life behaviour, sustain attention and monitor their own performance (functions often considered the "executive functions"). [8] These patients had great difficulty returning to their work and to their family. One of the characteristic findings was a variability of performance on simple reaction time. [9] This was very similar to what happens to patients with nontraumatic lesions of the prefrontal cortex and its connections. He and his colleagues demonstrated these deficits, and worked on ways to help such patients regain a normal life. [10]

In Toronto, Stuss and his colleagues Mick Alexander, Terence Picton and Tim Shallice set up a test battery of simple reaction-time tests to study disorders of attention in normally aging subjects, patients with frontal lobe damage, and patients with traumatic brain injury. [11] Using accurate measurements of lesion-extent in patients with frontal lobe damage he and his colleagues proposed that the prefrontal cortex does not act as a nonspecific cognitive processor, but that multiple localized regions of the prefrontal cortex each perform specific cognitive processes. Over the years, among the many localized functions of the prefrontal cortex, Stuss came to focus on five: [12]

The metacognitive aspects include

As of February 2020, Donald Stuss's h-index as judged on Web of Science using "stuss d*" and searching all databases was 71.

Books

Scientific administration

Stuss led the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto from 1989 until 2009. He started by recruiting Fergus Craik, Morris Freedman, Morris Moscovitch, and Endel Tulving. Around this nucleus he then assembled a group of cooperative and creative scientists to study the human brain using techniques from psychology, physiology, anatomy and neurology. All scientists at the institute were given salaries but no tenure - they had to maintain their scientific productivity to keep their appointments. Some idea of the research produced during his leadership can be found in the book Mind and the Frontal Lobes published as a festschrift for his retirement in 2009. [19]

Stuss was the founding president and Scientific Director of the Ontario Brain Institute from 2011 until 2016. During this time he set up a productive and collaborative network of research on the brain, conjointly funded by government, industry and academia. The institute has had remarkable success in its data sharing among researchers in different locations and in different disciplines. [20]

Honours

Stuss was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004 [21] and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2005. [22] He was made an officer of the Order of Ontario in 2001 and the Order of Canada in 2017. [23] He was appointed "University Professor" [24] at the University of Toronto in 2004, and in 2016 received the award from the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science named in honour of Canadian neuropsychologist Donald Hebb. [25]

Personal life

Donald Stuss married Kaaren Kummer in 1969 and they had two children: David born in 1973 and Leanne in 1974. Don and Kaaren separated in the early 2000s. For the last decade of his life Stuss lived together with his partner Lourenza Fourie. Stuss was also an avid canoeist. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

Source amnesia is the inability to remember where, when or how previously learned information has been acquired, while retaining the factual knowledge. This branch of amnesia is associated with the malfunctioning of one's explicit memory. It is likely that the disconnect between having the knowledge and remembering the context in which the knowledge was acquired is due to a dissociation between semantic and episodic memory – an individual retains the semantic knowledge, but lacks the episodic knowledge to indicate the context in which the knowledge was gained.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cognitive neuropsychology</span>

Cognitive neuropsychology is a branch of cognitive psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes. Cognitive psychology is the science that looks at how mental processes are responsible for our cognitive abilities to store and produce new memories, produce language, recognize people and objects, as well as our ability to reason and problem solve. Cognitive neuropsychology places a particular emphasis on studying the cognitive effects of brain injury or neurological illness with a view to inferring models of normal cognitive functioning. Evidence is based on case studies of individual brain damaged patients who show deficits in brain areas and from patients who exhibit double dissociations. Double dissociations involve two patients and two tasks. One patient is impaired at one task but normal on the other, while the other patient is normal on the first task and impaired on the other. For example, patient A would be poor at reading printed words while still being normal at understanding spoken words, while the patient B would be normal at understanding written words and be poor at understanding spoken words. Scientists can interpret this information to explain how there is a single cognitive module for word comprehension. From studies like these, researchers infer that different areas of the brain are highly specialised. Cognitive neuropsychology can be distinguished from cognitive neuroscience, which is also interested in brain damaged patients, but is particularly focused on uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frontal lobe</span> Part of the brain

The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere. It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove between tissues called the central sulcus and from the temporal lobe by a deeper groove called the lateral sulcus. The most anterior rounded part of the frontal lobe is known as the frontal pole, one of the three poles of the cerebrum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brodmann area 9</span> Part of the frontal cortex in the brain of humans and other primates

Brodmann area 9, or BA9, refers to a cytoarchitecturally defined portion of the frontal cortex in the brain of humans and other primates. It contributes to the dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortex.

In neurology, retrograde amnesia (RA) is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred or information that was learned in the past. It is caused by an injury or the onset of a disease. It tends to negatively affect episodic, autobiographical, and declarative memory, while keeping procedural memory intact without increasing difficulty for learning new information. RA can be temporally graded, or more permanent based on the severity of its cause. It is usually consistent with Ribot's law. The law states that subjects are more likely to lose memories closer to the traumatic incident than more memories that happened further from the incident. The type of information that is forgotten can range from a specific memory, such as a single event, or a more general memory. This would resemble generic amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is a similar condition that deals with the inability to form new memories following the onset of an injury or disease.

The Levels of Processing model, created by Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart in 1972, describes memory recall of stimuli as a function of the depth of mental processing. Deeper levels of analysis produce more elaborate, longer-lasting, and stronger memory traces than shallow levels of analysis. Depth of processing falls on a shallow to deep continuum. Shallow processing leads to a fragile memory trace that is susceptible to rapid decay. Conversely, deep processing results in a more durable memory trace. There are three levels of processing in this model. Structural processing, or visual, is when we remember only the physical quality of the word E.g how the word is spelled and how letters look. Phonemic processing includes remembering the word by the way it sounds. E.G the word tall rhymes with fall. Lastly, we have semantic processing in which we encode the meaning of the word with another word that is similar of has similar meaning. Once the word is perceived, the brain allows for a deeper processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prefrontal cortex</span> Part of the brain responsible for personality, decision-making, and social behavior

In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA46, and BA47.

Frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE) is a neurological disorder that is characterized by brief, recurring seizures arising in the frontal lobes of the brain, that often occur during sleep. It is the second most common type of epilepsy after temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and is related to the temporal form in that both forms are characterized by partial (focal) seizures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Executive functions</span> Cognitive processes necessary for control of behavior

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frontal lobe disorder</span> Brain disorder

Frontal lobe disorder, also frontal lobe syndrome, is an impairment of the frontal lobe of the brain due to disease or frontal lobe injury. The frontal lobe plays a key role in executive functions such as motivation, planning, social behaviour, and speech production. Frontal lobe syndrome can be caused by a range of conditions including head trauma, tumours, neurodegenerative diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders, neurosurgery and cerebrovascular disease. Frontal lobe impairment can be detected by recognition of typical signs and symptoms, use of simple screening tests, and specialist neurological testing.

Utilization behavior (UB) is a type of neurobehavioral phenomena that involves someone grabbing objects in view and starting the 'appropriate' behavior associated with it at an 'inappropriate' time. Utilization behavior people have difficulty resisting the impulse to operate or manipulate objects which are in their visual field and within reach. Characteristics of UB include unintentional, unconscious actions triggered by the immediate environment. The unpreventable excessive behavior has been linked to lesions in the frontal lobe. UB has also been referred to as "bilateral magnetic apraxia" and "hypermetamorphosis".

Fergus Ian Muirden Craik FRS is a cognitive psychologist known for his research on levels of processing in memory. This work was done in collaboration with Robert Lockhart at the University of Toronto in 1972 and continued with another collaborative effort with Endel Tulving in 1975. Craik has received numerous awards and is considered a leader in the area of memory, attention and cognitive aging. Moreover, his work over the years can be seen in developmental psychology, aging and memory, and the neuropsychology of memory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex</span> Area of the prefrontal cortex of primates

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is an area in the prefrontal cortex of the primate brain. It is one of the most recently derived parts of the human brain. It undergoes a prolonged period of maturation which lasts into adulthood. The DLPFC is not an anatomical structure, but rather a functional one. It lies in the middle frontal gyrus of humans. In macaque monkeys, it is around the principal sulcus. Other sources consider that DLPFC is attributed anatomically to BA 9 and 46 and BA 8, 9 and 10.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frontal lobe injury</span> Type of brain injury

The frontal lobe of the human brain is both relatively large in mass and less restricted in movement than the posterior portion of the brain. It is a component of the cerebral system, which supports goal directed behavior. This lobe is often cited as the part of the brain responsible for the ability to decide between good and bad choices, as well as recognize the consequences of different actions. Because of its location in the anterior part of the head, the frontal lobe is arguably more susceptible to injuries. Following a frontal lobe injury, an individual's abilities to make good choices and recognize consequences are often impaired. Memory impairment is another common effect associated with frontal lobe injuries, but this effect is less documented and may or may not be the result of flawed testing. Damage to the frontal lobe can cause increased irritability, which may include a change in mood and an inability to regulate behavior. Particularly, an injury of the frontal lobe could lead to deficits in executive function, such as anticipation, goal selection, planning, initiation, sequencing, monitoring, and self-correction. A widely reported case of frontal lobe injury was that of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker whose left frontal lobe was damaged by a large iron rod in 1848.

Retrospective memory is the memory of people, words, and events encountered or experienced in the past. It includes all other types of memory including episodic, semantic and procedural. It can be either implicit or explicit. In contrast, prospective memory involves remembering something or remembering to do something after a delay, such as buying groceries on the way home from work. However, it is very closely linked to retrospective memory, since certain aspects of retrospective memory are required for prospective memory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Functional specialization (brain)</span> Neuroscientific theory that different regions of the brain are specialized for different functions

In neuroscience, functional specialization is a theory which suggests that different areas in the brain are specialized for different functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planning (cognitive)</span> Neurological executive function

Cognitive planning is one of the executive functions. It encompasses the neurological processes involved in the formulation, evaluation and selection of a sequence of thoughts and actions to achieve a desired goal. Various studies utilizing a combination of neuropsychological, neuropharmacological and functional neuroimaging approaches have suggested there is a positive relationship between impaired planning ability and damage to the frontal lobe.

Executive functions are a cognitive apparatus that controls and manages cognitive processes. Norman and Shallice (1980) proposed a model on executive functioning of attentional control that specifies how thought and action schemata become activated or suppressed for routine and non-routine circumstances. Schemas, or scripts, specify an individual's series of actions or thoughts under the influence of environmental conditions. Every stimulus condition turns on the activation of a response or schema. The initiation of appropriate schema under routine, well-learned situations is monitored by contention scheduling which laterally inhibits competing schemas for the control of cognitive apparatus. Under unique, non-routine procedures controls schema activation. The SAS is an executive monitoring system that oversees and controls contention scheduling by influencing schema activation probabilities and allowing for general strategies to be applied to novel problems or situations during automatic attentional processes.

Ian Robertson is a Scottish neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin.

The anti-saccade (AS) task is a gross estimation of injury or dysfunction of the frontal lobe, by assessing the brain’s ability to inhibit the reflexive saccade. Saccadic eye movement is primarily controlled by the frontal cortex.

References

  1. 1 2 Alexander, M., Picton, T. W., & Shallice, T. (2020). Donald Stuss: A remembrance. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(3), 379-385.
  2. Craik, F., & Levine, B. (2020). In memoriam: Donald Stuss (1941-2019). Canadian Psychology, 61, 92-93.
  3. Levine, B., & Craik, F. I. M. (2020). Donald Stuss (1941-2019). American Psychologist, 75 (4), 595.
  4. 1 2 Stuss, D. T., & Benson, D. F. (1986). The frontal lobes. New York: Raven Press.
  5. Stuss, D. T., & Levine, B. (2002). Adult clinical neuropsychology: Lessons from studies of the frontal lobes. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 401–433.
  6. Burgess, P. & Stuss, D.T. (2017). Fifty years of prefrontal cortex research: Impact on assessment. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 23, 755-767.
  7. Alexander, M.P., Stuss, D.T., & Benson, D.F. (1979). Capgras syndrome: A reduplicative phenomenon. Neurology, 29, 334-339
  8. Stuss, D. T., & Alexander, M. P. (2000). Executive functions and the frontal lobes: A conceptual view. Psychological Research, 63, 289–298.
  9. Stuss, D.T., Stethem, L.L., Hugenholtz, H., Picton, T., Pivik, J., & Richard, M.T. (1989). Reaction time after head injury: Fatigue, divided and focused attention, and consistency of performance. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 52, 742-748
  10. Stuss, D. T., Murphy, K. J., Binns, M. A., & Alexander, M. P. (2003). Staying on the job: The frontal lobes control individual performance variability. Brain, 126, 2363–2380.
  11. Stuss, D. T., Alexander, M. P., Shallice, T., Picton, T. W., Binns, et al. (2005) Multiple frontal systems controlling response speed. Neuropsychologia 43, 396-417
  12. Stuss, D. T. (2017). Frontal lobes. In J. S. Kreutzer, J. DeLuca, & B. Caplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of clinical neuropsychology (2nd ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Springer
  13. Wheeler, M. A., Stuss, D. T., & Tulving, E. (1997). Toward a theory of episodic memory: The frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 331–354.[ dead link ]
  14. Stuss, D. T., Gallup, G. G., & Alexander, M. P. (2001). The frontal lobes are necessary for “theory of mind.” Brain, 124, 279–286.
  15. Craik, F. I. M., Moroz, T. M., Moscovitch, M., Stuss, D. T., Winocur, G., Tulving, E., et al. (1999). In search of the self: A positron emission tomography study. Psychological Science, 10, 26–34.
  16. Shammi, P., & Stuss, D. T. (1999). Humour appreciation: A role of the right frontal lobe. Brain, 122, 657–666.
  17. Stuss, D. T., Winocur, G., & Robertson, I. H. (Eds.). (2008). Cognitive neurorehabilitation: Evidence and application (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  18. Stuss, D. T., & Knight, R. T. (Eds.). (2013). Principles of frontal lobe function (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
  19. Levine, B., & Craik, F. I. M. (2009). Mind and the Frontal Lobes. New York: Oxford.
  20. Stuss, D. T. (2014). The Ontario Brain Institute: Completing the Circle. Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences. 41, 683-693
  21. "RSC Fellows Donald Stuss (deceased)". Archived from the original on 2020-04-16. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
  22. CAHS Fellows Directory
  23. Mikkelson, T. (January 12, 2017) OBI’s Founding President and Scientific Director Named Officer of the Order of Canada
  24. List of University Professors
  25. Donald O. Hebb Distinguished Contribution Award