Cognitive Training and Brain Plasticity - Towards an Understanding of Mediators and Moderators - PROJECT SUMMARY
The vast majority of our nation's aging population will experience some decline in cognitive function with age.
Therefore, the development of effective interventions to mitigate age-related cognitive decline is of critical
importance in that those interventions might not only impact older adults' cognitive and daily life functioning,
but ultimately, contribute to their health, well-being and quality of life. There is accumulating evidence that
cognitive interventions targeting working memory are beneficial in that they show generalizing effects that go
beyond what has been specifically trained, i.e. transfer effects, resulting in potential implications for public
health, especially in an older adult population. Despite the promising results, more research is needed to make
cognitive interventions more effective and more robust, and to uncover their underlying mechanisms.
The current project addresses two goals. The first goal is pragmatic, with a focus on how to make our
cognitive training intervention more effective by focusing on the implementation of motivational features and
the intervention's optimal scheduling (i.e., spacing of training sessions). We also will investigate the potential
additive effects of working memory interventions that are combined with other approaches, such as self-
efficacy interventions or electrical stimulation, investigate the intervention's longitudinal effects, and explore
whether any improvements extend to measures of everyday functioning. Second, this project addresses the
most important question of any intervention research by investigating the cognitive and neural mechanisms
underlying improvement using structural and functional neuroimaging. Furthermore, the project will shed light
on individual differences as moderating factors for training and transfer success. Given the sparse availability
of effective cognitive interventions, the project will have important implications in that it will shed more light on
the mechanisms of cognitive plasticity in old age, and serve as groundwork for future national and international
grant proposals.
For over a decade, the candidate has devoted her interdisciplinary research efforts to the investigation of
working memory and related functions, as well as individual differences and age-related cognitive change. She
is considered as a leader in the field of cognitive training, and her current projects that are funded by the
National Institute on Aging (NIA; 1R01AG049006 - 01A1) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES;
R324A150023) aim to contribute to a better understanding of the underlying behavioral and neural
mechanisms of learning and transfer by focusing on either older adults (NIA) or children with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Even though the specific goals and the populations in the two projects are
different, they do share the overall goal to increase the intervention's efficacy and to uncover mediators and
moderators of training-related change. Nonetheless, the present project will focus on older adults, since it is
the candidate's long-term goal to establish herself in the field of aging, and to ultimately conduct large-scale
randomized clinical trials to investigate the efficacy of targeted interventions in populations that are at risk for
dementia with the means of additional R01 funding or P01/center grants.
The University of California, Irvine (UCI) supports the candidate with protected research time (75% or 9
person months) and provides an ideal research environment to conduct her translational work due to the
multiple centers involving faculty from various schools and departments that are dedicated to the investigation
of memory, aging, and cognitive development (e.g. the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, or the Center
for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory), and as such, provide many opportunities for intellectual
discourse. The candidate has been engaged in collaborative projects with multiple faculty members at UCI,
and furthermore, she has long-standing national and international collaborators (e.g., with faculty at the
University of Michigan and the University of Queensland, Australia). For the duration of the proposed award,
the candidate plans extended visits at those labs in order to further advance her methodological skills and to
interact with distinguished faculty all over the world, which will further facilitate the candidate's career
development and establish her recognition as an independent scientist.
The K02 award would provide the candidate with protected time to focus on the development of her research
program and allow her to foster her national and international collaborations, and thus, enhance the potential to
make significant contributions to the field of cognitive training, aging, and brain plasticity. Her research program
has translational potential given its interdisciplinary approach involving Cognitive Science, Neuroscience,
Gerontology, and Education.
