This conversation explores nutritional cognitive neuroscience, an interdisciplinary field examining the bidirectional relationships among nutrition, cognition, brain health, and eating behavior. The discussion covers how dietary influences operate across biological, psychological, environmental, and sociocultural levels, including neuroplasticity, inflammation, reward processes, genetics, and access to healthy foods. It reviews emerging research on nutrient profiles, the gut–brain axis, and dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean, DASH, and MIND diets, while emphasizing that evidence for isolated supplements or “brain foods” is often limited or overstated. The conversation also highlights substantial individual variability in nutritional needs. For neuropsychologists, the central takeaway is to address nutrition as one component of broader brain health, provide measured and realistic guidance, and collaborate with qualified nutrition professionals when individualized recommendations are needed.
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Guest disclosures: None.
About Aron
Dr. Aron Barbey is the Founding Director of the Human Neuroimaging Center. His research investigates how intelligence emerges from the network organization and dynamics of the human connectome, applying methods from cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, and computer science. His work aims to achieve a deeper understanding of the neural foundations of intelligence and to enable scientific innovation in cognitive enhancement, neurorehabilitation, and biologically inspired artificial intelligence.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Barbey’s research group has received $26 million in research funding, with support from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and private industry partners.
In 2023, he joined the Defense Science Study Group at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He also serves as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of NeuroNexus, an MIT Press journal on the psychology, neuroscience, and engineering of intelligence.
References
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Chen, H., Dhana, K., Huang, Y., Huang, L., Tao, Y., Liu, X., Melo van Lent, D., Zheng, Y., Ascherio, A., Willett, W., & Yuan, C. (2023). Association of the Mediterranean Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet with the risk of dementia. JAMA Psychiatry, 80(6), 630–638. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.0800
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Huang, L., Tao, Y., Chen, H., Chen, X., Shen, J., Zhao, C., Xu, X., He, M., Zhu, D., Zhang, R., Yang, M., Zheng, Y., & Yuan, C. (2023). Mediterranean-Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet and cognitive function and its decline: A prospective study and meta-analysis of cohort studies. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 118(1), 174–182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.04.025
Zamroziewicz, M. K., & Barbey, A. K. (2016). Nutritional cognitive neuroscience: Innovations for healthy brain aging. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10, Article 240. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2016.00240
Zamroziewicz, M. K., Talukdar, M. T., Zwilling, C. E., & Barbey, A. K. (2017). Nutritional status, brain network organization, and general intelligence. NeuroImage, 161, 241–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.08.043
Zwilling, C. E., Talukdar, T., Zamroziewicz, M. K., & Barbey, A. K. (2019). Nutrient biomarker patterns, cognitive function, and fMRI measures of network efficiency in the aging brain. NeuroImage, 188, 239–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.12.007
Zwilling, C. E., Wu, J., & Barbey, A. K. (2024). Investigating nutrient biomarkers of healthy brain aging: A multimodal brain imaging study. npj Aging, 10, Article 27. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41514-024-00150-8