Rotman Rounds - C. Grady: Age differences in neural resources across multiple cognitive domains

Presenter:
Cheryl Grady

Location:
Baycrest
Brain Health Complex
8th Floor
Room 842

Dr. Grady received her graduate training in experimental psychology at Boston University.  She then went to the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland, as a research psychologist and Chief of the PET Unit, where she stayed until 1996.  In 1996 she moved to Toronto to take up her current position at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest.  Dr. Grady currently is a senior scientist, and Assistant Director at the Rotman Research Institute.  She also is a Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Toronto, and the Canada Research Chair in Neurocognitive Aging.  In 2001 she was awarded the Justine and Yves Sergent Award for Women in Neuroscience, and she has published over 150 scientific articles and chapters.  Her research uses neuroimaging techniques, such as functional MRI and magnetoencephalography to determine how the functional connectivity of various brain areas mediates cognition and how this connectivity is modified by age.  Her work has shown that the functional connectivity of regions critical for memory changes with age, suggesting a shift from more perceptually based processes in young adults to greater engagement of executive and strategic functions in older adults.  Recruitment of age-specific memory networks is related to how well older individuals perform on memory tasks, indicating that some brain changes seen with age serve a compensatory function.
mmarxen@rotman-baycrest.on.ca