UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Distinguished Professor of Psychology Peter Arnett recently received a prestigious award in his field.

The National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN) presented Arnett with its Reitan Clinical Excellence Award at its annual conference in Austin, Texas. Recipients of the award are recognized for their long-term impact in the field of clinical neuropsychology.

“The award is very meaningful to me because it is given to individuals who have made a significant career contribution to the clinical practice of neuropsychology,” Arnett said. “The research program I have developed and pursued over the past 25 years or so is designed to study topics that can be translated into clinical practice, so it’s nice to be recognized for that.”

This is the Arnett’s second NAN award. Several years ago, he and some colleagues received the Nelson Butters Award for Research Contributions to Clinical Neuropsychology for publishing the top paper in NAN’s journal, Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, the previous year.

Arnett’s research focuses on several areas related to clinical neuropsychology. For many years, his lab has been devoted to better understanding higher level cognitive processes — attention, memory, speeded information processing, etc. — in the brain among people with neurological conditions, particularly sports-related concussion and multiple sclerosis (MS).

He and his students run Penn State’s neuropsychology of sports concussion program. Currently, they’re exploring a number of “modifiable factors” that predict concussion outcomes in athletes, including whether depression and sleep difficulties together predict poor cognitive functioning after a concussion. 

“Both depression and sleep problems are modifiable, so treatment of these problems following a concussion could lead to better cognitive functioning and faster recovery,” said Arnett, whose graduate student, Garrett Thomas, is taking the lead on the project.

Graduate student McKenna Sakamoto is leading another study examining whether the racial or ethnic identity of athletes can predict the outcome of a concussion. And the lab recently published a study demonstrating it’s possible to screen for depression following a concussion using four items that are already routinely used as part of the post-concussion symptom scale (PCSS). Former graduate student Kaitlin Riegler led that study.

“If athletes scored above a certain level on these four items, it was highly likely that they would be depressed,” Arnett said. “This is useful, because the study showed that it was possible to screen for depression in athletes without adding anything new to the traditional post-concussion assessment battery.”

Meanwhile, Arnett and another group of students recently partnered with four national and international sites to conduct a study that provided 10 weeks of online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to individuals with MS.

Some of the participants received the treatment, while the others served as a waitlist control group. The treatment group showed a significantly greater decline in their depression scores at the end of the study period compared to the waitlist control group, Arnett noted.

“We are now doing follow-up studies to determine what proportion of the treatment group showed improved depression scores compared with the waitlist control group,” he said. “Additionally, we are examining factors that predict who benefits and who does not benefit from the treatment.”

Graduate student Megan Bradson is taking the lead on the studies, said Arnett, noting his students continue to inspire and energize his work.

“I have been truly blessed to work with a fantastic group of students over the years who have provided a great deal of energy and creativity to our work,” he said. “There have been so many wonderful little moments both in our individual meetings and our lab meetings where we have been trying to figure out how to approach a particular problem, or how to most effectively talk about an issue we were working on in a research paper. That never gets old, and I get just as excited about these conversations today as I did when I first started out.”