Smoking Exposure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
A primary focus of our team’s research is to understand how COPD affects brain structure and function. We are particularly interested in the impact of pulmonary, systemic vascular, and inflammatory changes that often accompany COPD on brain health. We utilize both paper and pencil neuropsychological tasks and brain MRI as outcomes in this interdisciplinary research.
Our team is also engaged in additional projects that focus on psychological adjustment /coping in COPD. These projects include identifying demographic and clinical factors that are associated with elevated anxiety and depression in COPD and understanding the link between patients’ social environment and their health behaviors.
Sarcoidosis Research
Sarcoidosis is a rare multi-systemic granulomatous disease that commonly affects the lungs, although any organ can be involved. It has variable manifestations and disease course and typically appears in early to middle adulthood. Cognitive difficulties or “brain fog” is a common symptom; however, very little research in sarcoidosis has used objective cognitive assessment and neuroimaging. Together with collaborator Nabeel Hamzeh, MD and the Iowa Sarcoidosis Center of Excellence we are conducting a study (The Neurobiology of Cognitive Dysfunction in Patients with Sarcoidosis) that brings together measures of sarcoidosis disease severity, objective cognitive assessment, and neuroimaging.
Cochlear Implant Research
The Hoth lab is part of a collaborative project to understand real world outcomes among individuals with hearing loss who receive cochlear implants. Out study goals are to identify challenging listening situations that cochlear implant users encounter in their daily lives, and to understand the role that cognitive function and individuals’ social environments may play in quality of life after implantation. This study is part of a larger NIH P50 grant awarded to the Iowa Cochlear Implant Research Center, which was established in 1985 by Bruce Gantz, MD, FACS.
Psychological Impact of COVID-19
Recently we have been involved in research to understand the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has included research to understand symptoms of cognitive difficulties and brain fog, which are a common concern of patients with long COVID and research to understand the impact of the pandemic on medical personnel through collaboration with the PREVENT study.