He now is a Florence Irving professor of neuropsychology and chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Division of the Neurology department.
[1] Stern's major contribution is the concept of cognitive reserve, which helps to explain differential susceptibility to age- or disease-related brain changes.
[4][5][6] In 1992, he demonstrated that when patients with Alzheimer's disease are matched for clinical severity, those with higher education had more extensive neurodegeneration, indicating that they could cope more successfully with the underlying pathology.
[7] He was one of the first to use prospective incidence studies to demonstrate that individuals with higher educational or occupational attainment,[8] or who engage in more late life leisure activities[9] have a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's.
[12] Stern's earliest work focused on identifying cognitive changes in nondemented patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, which helped identify the cognitive role of the basal ganglia when it was widely believed to have a role only in motor function.