Our lab conducts cognitive neuroscience of memory, aging, and dementia prevention research. We are specifically interested in understanding how biological sex, sociocultural gender, sex-specific experiences (i.e. menopause), and social determinants of health (SDH) interact to affect brain and cognitive health at midlife and older age.
Our research aims to identify factors that support and/or hinder brain and cognitive health in women and men from diverse communities and uncover why women are at greater risk of developing dementia, compared to men.
To achieve these goals, we combine behavioral experiments with multimodal MRI, and collect demographic, neuropsychological, psychosocial, physiological, hormonal, and genetic data from adults from diverse communities who vary in their expression of dementia risk factors. Using multivariate and machine learning methods, we aim to:
- Build more representative models of memory and brain aging across sexes and communities with diverse demographic and ethnocultural backgrounds.
- Identify key biological, demographic, and systemic factors influencing brain network health and resilience, especially in midlife.
- Advance theories of cognitive reserve and brain resilience in aging, accounting for sex, gender, and population diversity.
- Our long-term goal is to inform new therapies and policies that promote brain health and memory from midlife onward, helping to prevent or delay Alzheimer’s-related decline and improve quality of life for aging adults.
Ongoing Research Projects
Exploring individual differences in episodic memory and associated brain function in young adults.
Our memory for our past experiences (episodic memory) is essential to our identity. If we did not remember our past we would have a poor understanding of our self and the environment, which would in turn impact our ability to plan for the future.
Importantly, there is significant inter-individual variability in episodic memory ability in young adulthood, and significant variability in the slope of episodic memory decline with age. This research project aims to determine if individual differences in memory can be predicted by variations in specific hippocampal (HC) subfield volumes, patterns of functional connectivity and activity, and volume-activity/connectivity associations. We will also explore if there are sex differences in HC subfield-behavior associations and task-related activity and connectivity.
Sex and gender differences in the neurocognitive trajectories of normative and pathological aging.
This line of research is focused on understanding how environmental, lifestyle and sociocultural factors interact with neurobiological correlates of memory and cognition in healthy and pathological aging in women and men. We use multimodal MRI methods to examine how age-related differences in brain structure and function impact memory and cognition. We are especially interested in understanding why some adults show relative maintenance of episodic memory function with increasing age, while others do not. The goal of this line of research is to gain deeper insight into the neural basis of normative and pathological neurocognitive aging, and how individual differences in aging trajectories relate to the concepts of cognitive reserve, brain maintenance, resistance, resilience and compensation.
The Brain Health At Midlife and Menopause (BHAMM) Study: The role of biological sex and AD risk factors.
Two-thirds of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patients are females. The BHAMM Study tests the hypotheses that how a female brain experiences menopause may place her at greater or lower risk for AD and other dementias in later life. We will explore how individual differences in the presence of modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors for AD and other dementias affect brain health and memory function in females during the menopause transition and in males at midlife.
Understanding how social determinants of health and lifestyle factors influence brain-body aging and cognition in women and men.
This is a new and exciting arm of the BHEAM Lab’s research program. We aim to expand the BHAMM study and make it more inclusive. We will broaden the age range of participants tested to 18 - 80 years of age, and include racially, socioeconomically and educationally diverse individuals. The aim of this project is to examine how sex interacts with SDH and lifestyle factors to affect cognitive brain aging in females and males with varying levels of biological risk for AD. The long-term goal of this project is to develop more inclusive models of cognitive brain aging and AD risk to advance precision medicine and identify novel mechanisms of resilience and risk.