Cognitive and Brain Health

Dr. Barrett develops systems-level brain and body models unifying human affect, emotion, cognition, and action, drawing on psychology, neuroscience, physiology, philosophy, linguistics, biology, computer science, and engineering. 

Dr. Berent’s research explores human nature through the capacity for language, using phonology as a case study to examine whether it is constrained by abstract universal principles shared across speech and sign modalities. 

Dr. Bex uses cross-disciplinary approaches to study basic and clinical vision science, extending visual perception models to real-world conditions while developing diagnostic and rehabilitation methods for blinding eye diseases like macular degeneration, glaucoma, and amblyopia. 

Dr. Davidow’s research bridges psychology, neuroscience, and computer science to investigate how different types of learning change across development in children, adolescents, and adults, influencing memory, decision-making, and goals. 

Dr. Gabard-Durnam studies how environments and neuroplasticity interact to shape brain and behavior development, aiming to understand the mechanisms driving healthy, resilient, or maladaptive outcomes. 

Dr. Hillman investigates cognitive and brain health across the lifespan in children, young adults, and older adults, using neuroimaging tools like MRI/fMRI, EEG/ERPs, and eye-tracking to determine how lifestyle factors influence cognition and understand the underlying mechanisms. 

Dr. Jaeggi studies individual differences in working memory, executive functions, and related cognitive domains, along with their malleability across the lifespan, using experimental and neuroscientific approaches. 

Dr. Loui studies the neuroscience of music perception and cognition, examining what makes music emotionally moving, how brain connectivity enables or disrupts music perception, and how music can help those with neurological and psychiatric disorders. 

Dr. Noble works at the intersection of data science, neuroscience, and open science to create tools that facilitate more precise human neuroscience inference and prediction. 

Dr. Seitz studies perception, learning, and multisensory processing using diverse methodologies to create accessible tools and personalized training that improve cognitive performance in underserved populations. 

Dr. Peelle’s research is centered on the psychological and neural basis for human communication, particularly in the interaction between sensory and cognitive, and social factors. 

Dr. Qi studies the neurobiological organization of language in the brain, how it develops and is disrupted in neurodevelopmental disorders, and how this knowledge can enhance language learning and intervention. 

Dr. Reid investigates how human physiology adapts to social and nutritional contexts across the lifespan, focusing on stress, the immune system, and nutrient metabolism.

Dr. Rodman bridges developmental cognitive neuroscience and clinical science to examine how teens’ social experiences interact with brain development to increase adolescent mental health risk, aiming to improve adolescent wellbeing.  

Dr. Theriault studies the brain as a self-regulating system, focusing on the metabolic costs of information encoding and their implications for mental health and the interpretation of functional neuroimaging research.  

The Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health investigates how lifestyle choices and health behaviors–such as physical activity and diet–and their physiological effects, including fitness and adiposity, influence brain and cognition.

The Brain Game Center for Mental Fitness and Well-being designs interactive experiences for diverse populations to transform how we think about mental fitness and well-being.