Neurocognitive Plasticity

While you read this, your brain changes. Throughout the course of life, your brain and cognitive abilities –the capacity to perceive, attend, remember and reason – are constantly changing.

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Human brains and cognitive functioning are in a constant flux of change throughout life. The question is:

Can you decide to what extent your brain and cognition will change, and how?

Research has yielded astonishingly different perspectives on cognitive and brain changes throughout life. On the one hand, studies point to brain development and aging being under genetic control. On the other hand, there are associations between intellectual and physical experiences and cognitive function across the lifespan, and recent studies show that brain and cognition are improved by targeted cognitive interventions. However, the time course, stability, generalizability and restrictions to training effects on brain and cognition are largely unknown.

Objectives

The aim of this project is to uncover mechanisms governing neurocognitive plasticity – its potential, restrictions and time course – in young and old age, and reconcile the apparent contradiction between genetic control and environmental impact. We will study the effects of memory training with repeated Magnetic Resonance Imaging and cognitive tests with 200 young (20-30 yrs of age) and 200 elderly (70-80 yrs of age) adults. Through this project we aim to identify:

Distinct modulators of brain changes in terms of age, neural integrity, and genotype.
The time course of changes in brain and cognition.
The extent of transfer of memory training effects to other cognitive functions.