Janelle N Beadle
- Leo Missinne Professor of Gerontology
- Gerontology, Associate Professor
General Information
Biography
Janelle Beadle received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Notre Dame. During her doctoral work at the University of Iowa she was supported by a T32 training grant funded by NINDS.She completed a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Iowa under the mentorship of Daniel Tranel, PhD., and Sergio Paradiso, M.D., Ph.D. Her doctoral work used neuropsychological methods to investigate the brain bases of empathy in patients with focal brain damage and in healthy aging. Following her Ph.D., she completed a postdoctoral fellowship supported by NIA at Brandeis University under the mentorship of Angela Gutchess Ph.D., with a focus on social and affective neuroscience of aging. She went on to complete additional postdoctoral training at the University of Iowa with Sergio Paradiso, M.D., Laurie McCormack, M.D., and Melissa Duff, Ph.D. During this time, she completed studies of social cognition in patients with anorexia nervosa, and patients with traumatic brain injury.
Teaching Interests
biology of aging, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive neuroscience of aging, social neuroscience, caregiving, age-related changes to the brain that affect emotion
Research Interests
*Janelle is currently taking graduate students. Her primary appointment is in the Department of Gerontology, but she also mentors students from the Department of Psychology Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Behavior at UNO.Janelle is the Director of the Aging Brain and Emotion Lab (ABE Lab) at UNO. The focus of her lab is to investigate the brain networks that support adaptive social cognitive processes in healthy aging. To study this question, she uses cognitive neuroscience and psychological tools to examine brain-behavior relationships in healthy aging and patients with focal brain damage or neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Her studies cover a range of topics within the social and affective neuroscience field; for instance, she examines age-related differences in empathy, loneliness, social networks, among other topics. She employs a variety of cognitive neuroscience techniques to investigate these areas including fMRI, neuropsychological testing, behavioral experiments, and hormonal assays. Her research has been supported by Program of Excellence Funds to the University of Nebraska, the Vada Kinman Oldfield Award for Alzheimer's Research, and NASA Nebraska EPSCoR Mini-Grant (Federal Award #NNX15AK50A).A second line of her research focuses on understanding the psychological and brain impacts of caregiving in older adulthood. Caregiving to older adults with chronic conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, can be a very rewarding but also physically and emotionally challenging experience. This research project examines the degree to which caregiving in older adulthood affects emotional and cognitive processes and in turn can impact health in both positive and negative ways. This project was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, 1U54GM115458-01.Link to publications:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1HeEbrcqYUEA2/bibliography/41379078/public/?sort=date&direction=ascending