Chandra听Reynolds

  • Professor
  • INSTITUTE FOR BEHAVIORAL GENETICS
  • PSYCHOLOGY & NEUROSCIENCE
Address

Institute for Behavioral Genetics
University of Colorado Boulder
447 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0447

Research Interests:

My research interests focus on life span development and aging, particularly the coaction and interplay of genes and environments on cognitive aging and the risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). I engage in longitudinal research, often of twins and adoptees, to examine how and why individuals differ in early life contexts and behavioral health pathways across time and their effects on cognitive functioning. Cognitive resilience in the face of genetic and environmental risks is a current direction of interest. In addition to participating in the international Interplay of Genes and Environment Across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortia, and the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA), I am the contact PI of the Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan behavioral development and cognitive aging (CATSLife).

Active Grants:

  • R01 AG046938 (Reynolds, Wadsworth) 09/15/2020 - 05/31/2025. Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan behavioral development & cognitive aging (CATSLife2). Role: MPI, Contact
  • R01 AG050595听(Kremen, Franz, Panizzon, Elman, Reynolds, MPIs, 2023-present). 06/01/20-03/31/25. The VETSA Longitudinal Twin Study of Cognition and Aging (VETSA 4). Role: MPI; Site PI
  • R01 AG060470听(Gatz, Pedersen, MPIs) 09/01/2018 鈥 03/31/2025 [extension]. Clarifying risk and protective factors for dementia with the Interplay of Genes and Environment in Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortium.听Role: Co-investigator; Site PI
  • 1R21AG087486 (Luczak) 12/2024 鈥 11/2026. Implications of midlife alcohol use for risk of dementia in male and female twins: Unique contributions and interactions with APOE4. Role: Co-investigator
  • R01DA059804 (Gustavson) 08/15/2024- 5/31/2029. Establishing if Music Engagement is a Protective Factor in Adolescent Substance Use Using Existing Longitudinal, Genetic, and Environmental Datasets. Role: Co-investigator
  • R01AG089666 (Reynolds, Neiderhiser) 08/01/2024 鈥 04/30/2029. Gene-environment interplay among modifiable factors for AD/ADRD: risk and resilience across the lifespan. Role: Principal investigator, Contact
  • 1R01AG081248 (Finch, Finkel, Gatz, MPI) 04/2024 鈥 03/2029. Country, cohort, and gender disparities in the relationship between education and ADRD. Role: Co-investigator
  • AG050595 (Panizzon (Contact), Elman, Franz, Panizzon, Reynolds, MPIs) 09/2015 鈥 03/2025. The VETSA Longitudinal Twin Study of Cognition and Aging (VETSA 4) Role: MPI
  • FORTE Project Number: 2022-00672 (Karlsson, PI) 01/01/2023 鈥12/31/2025. 脰vervikt, en heterogen fenotyp: Unders枚kning av skillnader f枚r att f枚rst氓 sambandet med 氓ldersrelaterade sjukdomar [Overweight as a heterogeneous phenotype: Leveraging differences in adiposity-related traits to understand effects on age-related disease]. Role: Collaborator.
  • AFAR Application #HEV~NI23013 (Evans) 12/2023 鈥 12/2026. Gene-Gene Interaction Associations with Frailty to Identify Core Genes of Aging and Their Biological Context. Role: Co-investigator.

Additional Resources:

Reynolds Current Lab

Publications

Reynolds Highlighted Publications

Nearly 60 lifestyle and psychological traits were evaluated with cognitive functioning in established adulthood in CATSLife using robust and cotwin-control methods. Results 听revealed that an appreciation for cognitive complexity and a sense of purpose in life may be protective to cognitive functioning, controlling for genetic and environmental confounds, in addition to the well-known risk from smoking.

(Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 2024)

Using the CATSLife sample, we developed a frailty index with sibling similarity patterns suggesting that moderate genetic influences contribute to frailty differences in early adulthood. Moreover, frailty is associated with worse performance on the Digit Symbol Substitution Subtest, a processing speed task evidencing increasingly stronger associations at higher ages. Thus, even in adults approaching midlife, an understudied period within lifespan development, indicators of vulnerability to stress as indexed by frailty are associated with processing speed and warrant additional longitudinal investigation.

(The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2023)

Using data from the IGEMS consortium, we observed that for Semantic Fluency and Episodic Memory tasks, genetic influences contribute to cognitive function at shorter sleep durations (4 hours) to a greater degree than at longer sleep durations (10 hours), consistent with prior work in the field suggesting that short sleep may be associated with an upregulation of neuroinflammatory processes and ineffective beta-amyloid clearance.

(Sleep, 2022)

The first report to include polygenic scores for Alzheimer's disease (AD) simultaneously in a biometrical twin model of AD risk in Swedish twins. APOE accounts for much of the measured polygenic contribution with substantial background genetic influences still to be understood.

(Brain Communications, 2022)