Brandon Gavett

About

Brandon Gavett, Ph.D., ABPP-CN, is an Associate Professor of Neurology at the UC Davis School of Medicine. He is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist whose work employs advanced psychometric methods such as latent variable modeling and item response theory, along with machine learning techniques, to enhance understanding of how cognitive abilities change during late life as a result of aging and neurodegenerative diseases. His research interests focus on risk and resilience factors—including cognitive reserve, brain reserve, and brain maintenance—and how these traits are established and maintained throughout the lifespan. His work integrates data related to cognitive functioning, neuroimaging, biomarkers, personality, and lifestyle variables, with an emphasis on understanding, characterizing, and addressing health disparities in cognitive aging that impact different racial and ethnic groups. Dr. Gavett conducts his research as part of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, one of approximately 30 NIH-funded ADRCs nationwide. The UC Davis ADRC has been following study participants for over 20 years in some cases, collecting clinical, neuroimaging, and biomarker data relevant to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Medicine
• Developmental psychology
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive psychology
• Biology
• Audiology
• Demography
• Pathology
• Psychiatry

Selected publications

• Associations between personality and psychological characteristics and cognitive outcomes among older adults.

  Psychology and Aging · 2024-02-08 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  = .009) were associated with less cognitive change, independent of baseline brain variables and covariates. Greater sadness predicted more cognitive decline when controlling for covariates, but not brain atrophy. A variety of psychological characteristics were associated with the cross-sectional measures of cognition. This study highlights the important impact of positive and negative affect on reducing or enhancing the risk of longitudinal cognitive decline. Such findings are especially importa…

  PublisherDOI

• Subjective cognitive complaints and future risk of dementia and cognitive impairment, which matters most

  Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition · 2024-12-18 · 5 citations

  article

  Many older adults report subjective cognitive decline (SCD); however, the specific types of complaints most strongly associated with early disease detection remain unclear. This study examines which complaints from the Everyday Cognition Scales (ECog) are associated with progression from normal cognition to mild cognitive impairment (MCI)/dementia. 415 older adults were monitored annually for 5 years, on average. Cox proportional hazards models assessed associations between ECog complaints and p…

  PublisherDOI

• Vietnamese Insights into Cognitive Aging Program (VIP): Objectives, study design, and cohort description

  Alzheimer s & Dementia Translational Research & Clinical Interventions · 2024-07-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Introduction: There is a dearth of research on cognitive aging and dementia in Asian Americans, particularly in Vietnamese Americans, the fourth largest Asian subgroup in the United States. Methods: The Vietnamese Insights into Cognitive Aging Program (VIP) investigates early life adversity and war-related trauma and their associations with cognitive health in a community-based sample of older Vietnamese Americans in Northern California (i.e., Sacramento and Santa Clara counties). Baseline measu…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The McCusker Subjective Cognitive Impairment Inventory (McSCI): a novel measure of perceived cognitive decline

  Age and Ageing · 2024-07-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Subjective cognitive decline (SCD), i.e. self/other-reported concerns on one's cognitive functioning without objective evidence of significant decline, is an indicator of dementia risk. There is little consensus on reliability and validity of the available SCD measures. Therefore, introducing a novel and psychometrically sound measure of SCD is timely. OBJECTIVE: The psychometric properties of a new SCD measure, the McCusker Subjective Cognitive Impairment Inventory-Self-Report (McSC…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Harmonized cognitive performance in an older adult cohort of Vietnamese American immigrants: The VIP study

  Alzheimer s & Dementia · 2025-05-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  INTRODUCTION: Vietnamese Americans represent an understudied population with unique risk factors relevant to cognitive aging. The current study sought to model global cognition in the Vietnamese Insights into Cognitive Aging Program (VIP) study and harmonize ability estimates with the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) Uniform Data Set. METHODS: Cognitive data from VIP (N = 548) and NACC (N = 15,923) were analyzed using item response theory. Seven common items were assessed for diff…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert A. Stern

  Boston University

  118 shared

• C Golden

  84 shared

• Ann C. McKee

  United States Department of Veterans Affairs

  67 shared

• Robert C. Cantu

  Emerson Hospital

  66 shared

• Christopher J. Nowinski

  Boston University

  64 shared

• Daniel H. Daneshvar

  Harvard University

  56 shared

• Neil W. Kowall

  University of California, San Francisco

  53 shared

• Andrew E. Budson

  VA Boston Healthcare System

  51 shared

Education

• Postdoctoral Resident, Alzheimer's Disease Center

  Boston University School of Medicine

  2009

• Psychology Intern

  VA Connecticut Health System West Haven Campus

  2007

• Ph.D.

  University at Albany Department of Psychology

  2007

Similar researchers at University of California, Davis

• Leigh Ann Simmonsh-31
• Brittany D Chambersh-20
• Tomiko (Tiko) Yonedah-15