Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

  A neuroscientist, athletic trainer and physician walk into a bar… Walking into a bar  matches better with an old-school joke, doesn’t it? I started a recent post with  walking into a room , which is about as interesting an opening line as many of our COVID-era days, isn’t it? Anyway, bar, room or what have you – my dissertation path took an interesting turn last week. At the outset, the plan was that each committee member – the neuroscientist, athletic trainer and physician – would give me a reading list of the materials I’d need to know for my preliminary exam. (if you didn’t read an earlier blog posting – the preliminary exam is the gatekeeper for continued progress toward a Ph.D.) Of the three committee members, one committed to getting me his reading list by the end of the week. I’ll be meeting with another committee member next week to review his reading list. And last week I met with the third committee member, which didn’t quite go as-planned. Not in a bad way. In fact, probab

The mind and body are inextricably intertwined. I think we all have a sense of this, though many aspects of modern medicine still treat the body without significant consideration of the mind. This may seem like a glaring oversight, though many of the triumphs of modern medicine, such as the near-eradication of many childhood diseases thru immunization, are the result of prioritizing evidence-based treatments. While I think many of us know that the mind is a powerful influencer of our healing force, it’s hard to quantify the degree to which this is true. In short, there is a need for more evidence supporting the power of mind-training to facilitate healing the body. I hold mind-training to be as important as physical training in optimizing wellbeing. I’ll be exploring the degree to which people recover from a full tear of their knee’s Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL). A torn ACL is a relatively common injury in the US, occurring in about 300,000 people per year. A torn ACL used to be a

  A neuroscientist, athletic trainer and physician walk into a room… This sounds like the makings of a sad joke, doesn’t it? In my world, however, these professionals hold the key to the next-step of my academic career. In the next couple weeks, I’ll be meeting with this neuroscientist, athletic trainer and physician to review content for my upcoming preliminary exams. In preparing for prelims, I’ll be laying the groundwork for the research that will undergird my dissertation. I’ll be exploring how meditation may (or may not) improve recovery rates from major knee injuries in youth athletes. This afternoon I shared this idea with colleagues at the  Center for Healthy Minds , and received helpful feedback. It was heartening to hear people’s thoughtful reflections on what I was proposing, and I came away with several concrete ways to improve this study. To effectively pull off this original research, however, I will first need to demonstrate a depth of knowledge in my field. This neurosc

Many of us live with nearly constant mental stimulation. While walking, standing or driving, for example, how many of you listen to a podcast or other information input? While I’m a big fan of podcasts, the unstructured time that used to be embedded into daily life has largely been replaced by a nonstop stimulus-tsunami. While some level of mental stimulation keeps our minds agile and youthful, too much information inflow seems to accompany rising incidences of anxiety and dis-ease. Like the physical body thrives when activity is punctuated with recovery time, the mind functions best when wakefulness is punctuated with gaps that we may otherwise label as  boring . Sometimes "boredom" can be mentally nourishing. I’ve found that observing the interstitial spaces in my day leads to greater wellbeing. For example, there are inevitably gaps between sessions, Zoom meetings and classes. I default to quickly checking email in these interstices, though I rarely have enough time to ans