Talk:Nun Study

Article creation
I'm new to Wikipedia but I thought I'd help out and start this page, as it was requested in the talk for David Snowdon. Hope this helps! --MTHarden 15:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

If this is a longitudinal study, what are the current findings now? Being 13 years since this article was first posted, have they found any additional resources. Par1606 (talk) 04:56, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

From what I can tell there are at least two recent studies on this subject that haven't been mentioned. I briefly discussed one of them in the current findings section but there's a 2017 study that I haven't looked into yet. Adultdev22 (talk) 04:39, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Enhancements
After making some pretty significant enhancements to this article, I made an account so I could add it to my watchlist. This was my first earnest effort at editing, so I tried to be thorough, yet succinct, with my contribution. Feedback'd be gladly appreciated. DrBurger (talk) 07:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Categorisation is misleading
Why does this article get categorised as a "psychology experiment" when this study was a longitudinal study, not an experiment? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is a separate category for psychological studies. Studies like Genetic Studies of Genius are also in this category. --MTHarden (talk) 21:34, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Qualtiy / Importance
I added the tags for stub class of low importance. I would argue that this might actually qualify as mid importance because the Nun Study does get a fair amount of play in the media, many psychologists know of it, and there have been a number of publications from it. Thoughts? --MTHarden (talk) 13:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Pathological?
Why the category pathological science? There is nothing here to hint that the study is bad science in any way. Anders Sandberg (talk) 00:06, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It would appear that the category, 'pathological science', indicating as you say, 'bad science', has been appropriately removed, replaced by PATHOLOGY, which is reasonable, as there were autopsies of the brain performed in order to assess for plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer's Disease, in relation to clinical (psychological) testing. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 05:32, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Linguistic density
It would really benefit from a definition of 'Linguistic density' 82.31.66.207 (talk) 06:34, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It would also really benefit from inclusion of the fact that presence of plaques & tangles on autopsy (indicating Alzheimer's) were not always associated with clinical evaluation of its presence previous to death. "Neuronal hypertrophy may constitute an early cellular response to Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology or reflect compensatory mechanisms that prevent cognitive impairment despite substantial AD lesions;...". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2734290/ UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 05:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Potential Addition of Information
Hello! I came across this page while doing research for my adult development course. I clicked on the first external link that links to the "Official Nun Study homepage" page for the University of Minnesota. There is a lot of interesting information about the participants in the study and the study in general that may be useful to add to flesh out the article a little bit. Ntorgesen (talk) 21:33, 30 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi! I also came across this page from my Adult Development class. The potential information I thought would be appropriate to add was to go deeper into the reasoning as to why he chose to study Nuns. Yes, it was because of their lifestyle, but specifically their decision to lead a chaste life and refrain from drug and alcohol abuse, factors that can skew results in a study. Wleahm (talk) 01:44, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * - keep in mind WP:NOTESSAY and that any content presenting human behavior should be supported by a WP:RS source or - if applicable to health and disease - a WP:MEDRS review. Zefr (talk) 01:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Addition of more information.
I came across this article while doing an assignment for my Adult Development class and would love to help expand it in any way possible. I believe that there could potentially be more information from the sources placed here in order to give readers a all around clearer grasp of the subject manner and the details of the experiment. I would also love to see more sources form recent years as it seems that most of these sources are a bit dated and if this is a longitudinal study I would assume there are more recent statements we could taker into account. Admiralzackbar (talk) 03:56, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

While reading this article, I felt like it could be greatly improved by adding some pictures of the original nuns in the study, or some infographics (like charts or graphs) of the results from the nuns in this study compared to the general elderly adult population. I don't know if these photos would exist, however I think that the graphs would make the information much easier to understand quickly.99bunker55 (talk) 20:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Background to Study
Hello, I'm also from an adult development class and I'm interested in adding more to the history of this study. The study didn't start out with the intent to study Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Snowdon simply knew he wanted to use the nuns for a study because of their unique similarities. I'd like to talk more about it's history and early findings. Let me know if you have any suggestions. SydneyChristiansen19 (talk) 15:34, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Possible reorganization of information?
Hello! I am also reviewing this page as part of an adult development course. The article is getting there, and has a lot of potential! I would suggest maybe redistributing certain information into different sections of the article, or even adding new sections to the article for the sake of organization. It would make the article a little easier to read, and possibly offer some clarification to the topic and its timeline. Sydneyboyack (talk) 19:21, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I thought about reorganizing things a little bit, too. I think that the introductory sentence could be changed to include a very brief summary of key results from the study. This would make it easier for people to find what they re looking for. MrChancellor (talk) 05:45, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

missing citation, first section
Any idea how to find this missing citation in the last paragraph of the Origin and Procedure? I was thinking of deleting it but I wanted to see first if anyone knew where the info comes from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adultdev22 (talk • contribs) 04:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Media for the Article
I have found this to be very interesting. I do believe that it would be helpful to know what some of the Nuns would have looked like to make you have a deeper connection to this articular. However, I am anxiously waiting to see what they have found with the nuns brains. I really hope that there are things that we can learn from this even more then we have already. I also wonder if the environment did have a big difference on the brain and if it helped the nuns to stay healthier in the long term prospective. I do believe that this study had a pretty well balanced in talking about the data that has been found and about some of the things that they found about Alzheimer's disease. I hope that they keep finding things that have an impact. Overall, I would love to see this updated with the final results of the study. JaredNeilson (talk) 00:45, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I have really enjoyed reading this article and learning more about the Nun Study, and how it has furthered our understanding of Alzheimers disease. I think adding a picture of the Nuns who participated in this study would be beneficial to further understanding. Anyone know of any sources I could use to add an image? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carolinepearson (talk • contribs) 17:45, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I feel like some images could definitely enhance this article, as well as a deeper look into more recent studies? Does anyone know if there have been any more recent ones done? 2019-2021? 184.99.92.227 (talk) 03:02, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Photos, contemporary discoveries, and expounding upon statistical findings could help develop this article
I second the call for some photos to enhance the article. Have photos of the nuns been made publicly available?

I also think that an emphasis has been made on postmortem discoveries. What kind of observations and advances are being made during the annual cognitive and psychical examinations?

Some of the correlational findings such as brain mass to the presence of Alzheimer's are interesting, but some more details could be useful. Quoting some figures of what kinds of brain masses correlate with the highest instances of Alzheimer's would be beneficial, as an example.

Brighamb (talk) 08:43, 23 January 2022 (UTC)