I joined the Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors department at Michigan Tech in Fall 2021. With a background in cognitive neuroscience, I was interested in joining the Aging, Cognition, and Action lab. After some training I was onboarded for a project, funded by the National Institute of Health, investigating early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease and long-term retention in two types of movement adaptation: visuomotor rotation and force-field adaptation. The ultimate goal of this work was to identify behavioral markers of cognitive impairment in pre-clinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease that could facilitate earlier diagnosis. This work helped me not only learn valuable research skills but fueled my passion for research.
I have spent my years at Tech investigating the impacts of aging and cognitive decline on motor learning. My dissertation seeks to distinguish the overlapping- and unique- neural networks involved in motor sequence learning and movement adaptation. We plan to measure changes in oxygenated hemoglobin in the pre-frontal cortex using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We expect this region to be of importance to the explicit memory systems involved in motor learning. This work will contribute to our understanding of how healthy aging impacts motor learning, and how this knowledge may help us improve cognitive assessment and neuropsychological evaluations in neurodegenerative diseases in later adulthood.
I am grateful for the support from the Copper Shores Community Health Foundation for helping fund my final semester at Michigan Tech. I would also like to thank my advisor, Dr. Kevin Trewartha, for his support and guidance throughout my graduate school journey. I am excited to complete my PhD and continue my passion for health-related research.