Our lab, led by Natasha Rajah, conducts behavioural and neuroimaging studies in the cognitive neuroscience of memory, aging and dementia prevention. We use structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods to investigate how biological and demographic variables (i.e. biological sex, genetics, sex hormones, education, bilingualism, etc.) impact the neural networks mediating episodic memory encoding and retrieval across the adult lifespan. We also conduct parallel studies in adults with risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
The goals of our research program are to understand:
- How does the brain encode and retrieve episodic memories?
- How does healthy aging impact the neural correlates of learning and memory across the adult lifespan?
- How does biological sex, stress, hormones and lifestyle factors influence cognitive and brain function as we age?
- How do these changes differ in adults at-risk vs. not at-risk of AD?
- What differentiates older adults who perform as well as young adults on memory tasks (high-performers), from those who exhibit age-related memory decline?