Postdoctoral researcher Hillary Schwarb was the first author of the study.
Professor Aron Barbey led a team that found that the structural integrity of the hippocampus, a region in the brain, could mediate the relationship between fitness and memory.
Researchers have identified an important link between the consumption of lutein-rich foods and brain health in older adults.
Recent innovations in the psychological and brain sciences have advanced our understanding of human intelligence. Rather than engaging a single brain structure or operating at a fixed level of performance throughout adulthood, emerging evidence indicates that intelligence is mediated by a distributed neural system whose functions can be significantly enhanced by specific types of intervention. Early discoveries in the neurosciences revealed that experience can modify brain structure long after brain development is complete, but we are only now beginning to establish methods to enhance the function of specific brain systems and to optimize core facets of intellectual ability.
Aron Barbey – professor of psychology; Marta Zamroziewicz, graduate student; and Chris Zwilling, postdoc
A new study of older adults finds an association between higher blood levels of phosphatidylcholine, a source of the dietary nutrient choline, and greater cognitive flexibility, the ability to regulate attention to manage competing tasks. The study also identified a brain structure within the prefrontal cortex, a region at the front of the brain, that appears to play a role in this association.
Rather than engaging a single brain structure or operating at a fixed level of performance throughout adulthood, emerging evidence indicates that intelligence is mediated by a distributed neural system whose functions can be significantly enhanced by specific types of intervention.
The Decision Neuroscience Lab is featured in Psychology Today.
from left: Erick Paul, postdoctoral research associate, cognitive neuroscience; and Ryan Larsen, research scientist
