Lawrence Whalley

Lawrence J. Whalley FRCP(E) FRCPsych was Crombie Ross Professor of Mental Health in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK from 1992-2008.

Best known for his ground-breaking follow-up studies of 757 Aberdeen City and Shire residents who took part at age 11 years in the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947. He has authored or co-authored more than 240 scientific publications (H-index = 54 in 2014), seven books and has contributed to many TV and radio programmes mostly about the dementias of old age. Notably, he co-authored "A lifetime of Intelligence" with Deary & Starr (published by the American Psychological Association in 2009) and "Dementia" with John Breitner (Montreal) in 2002 and 2010.

Whalley's popular science account of "The Ageing Brain" (Phoenix Press, 2004, published in the USA and translated into Spanish, Italian and Japanese) describes some of his research findings on brain structural and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, nutrition, genetics and physical health and how these explain differences in individual rates of ageing of some mental abilities while others are relatively preserved. His work "Understanding brain aging and dementia: a life course approach" will be published in 2015 by Columbia University Press. He is currently professor emeritus at the University of Aberdeen (2008-2022)and an honorary professor at the University of the Highlands & Islands (2010-2020). He has lectured widely in UK, USA, Canada and Australia mostly about dementia and severe forms of mental illness. He was a member of the senior clinical scientific staff at the MRC Brain Metabolism Unit, Edinburgh University(1978-1986), senior lecturer in psychiatry (Edinburgh University, 1986-1991) and honorary consultant psychiatrist Lothian Health Board (1978-1991).

Lawrence Whalley went to school at St Joseph's College, Blackpool, 1954-64, graduated in Medicine from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1969. He was the fourth of seven of his graduate year to be appointed to a professorial position in a UK University. Outstanding among 85 medical co-graduates from Newcastle in 1969 were Ian Lauder (pathologist), Paul Gregg (surgeon), Howard C Thomas (physician)and Sir Alan Craft (paediatrician)and some others who are difficult to remember. Whalley trained in psychiatry in Oxford and Edinburgh Universities where he studies epidemiology, psychometrics and psychoneuroendocrinology before beginning cytogenetic-environment studies in early onset Alzheimer’s Disease (EOAD). In the University of Edinburgh with MRC support, he studied the epidemiology of EOAD in Scotland (1974–1988), found non-random urban “clusters” of EOAD and identified childhood environmental factors which increased risk and reduced survival after dementia onset. Using kinship analysis he showed ancestral genes could only partly explain some “clusters” but were of small effect at a population level.

Together with Ian Deary and John Starr, he began prospective studies of cognitive decline and vascular risk factors in 1300 healthy old people in Edinburgh. In 1997, he re-discovered a unique national archive of childhood IQ data (N~160,000) that could be used to estimate lifelong cognitive variation. No other country has ever IQ tested a total population sample in this way. In 1998, he devised a strategy to recruit 285 Aberdeen survivors all born in 1921 of the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932 (subjects by then aged 77) and next, in 2000, he recruited 506 survivors all born in 1936 from a second 1947 Survey (subjects by then aged 64 years). These groundbreaking studies were capitalized upon by Ian Deary In Edinburgh who followed up with subsequent studies that formed "The Disconnected Mind Project" of adults by then aged 69 years and also born in 1936.

With support of a Wellcome Professorial Senior Fellowship (2001–2006), he consolidated and extended his database and followed up these cohorts biennially for 5 years. He showed that dementia incidence is greater in those of lower childhood IQ, that lifetime variation in cognitive performance is linked to specific genetic factors, smoking, nutritional factors, childhood intelligence and education.

His research colleagues led by Roger Staff developed advanced statistical models of longitudinal changes in cognitive performance that include findings from longitudinal brain MRI studies and measures of information processing efficiency. With Deary and Starr, parallel follow-up studies were begun in Edinburgh University.

He retired from the University of Aberdeen in 2008 and after spending a period in the University of Southern California (curtailed by illness) he returned to Edinburgh where he has remained. In 2010 he was appointed to the part-time staff of the University of the Highlands and Islands with the remit to develop a community-based dementia research programme relevant to a rural community.

Personal life: Whalley married Patricia MacCarthy and they have three daughters and six grandchildren. He has remarried Helen Fox PhD (née Teehan) a research psychologist and they continue to live in Scotland and share dementia research responsibilities in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and the Highlands & Islands of Scotland.

References

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/alzheimers/biographies/whalley.shtml