Dr. Ingrid Olson’s cognitive neuroscience laboratory studies memory, decision making, social cognition, and the intersection of these processes. To do this, we use a variety of methods including structural and functional MRI and network connectivity.
Ongoing Studies
We are using longitudinal behavioral sampling and high-resolution brain imaging techniques to measure how component parts of episodic memory change in young children. This work is done in collaboration with Dr. Nora Newcombe
Read more here: https://templeinfantlab.com/research/memory-research/
There is emerging evidence that features of the external environment have consequences for the developing as well as aging brain. In one study we are investigating how air pollution may be a catalyst for accellerated brain aging and even dementia. In another study, we are asking whether air pollution may harm the developing brain. Other exposures in the water we drink and food we eat – things like forever chemicals, and microplastics – are uncharted territory but may have negative consequences for neural functioning, depending on the dosage and maturational timing of exposure.
Models have been successfully developed to explain the role of the cerebellum in motor processing. These models emphasize the cerebellum’s role as a learning machine that modulates and perfects ongoing processing through the online comparison of reality to an internal model, thereby utilizing sensory prediction errors. Recent findings in humans and mice suggest that portions of the cerebellum are involved in reward processing; a process which has primarily been investigated in regards to the basal ganglia. It is unclear what computational role the cerebellum plays in this reward processing, as the cerebellum has been said to explicitly operate without reward information. To understand this, the our project will use fMRI in healthy young adults to study the cerebellum’s contribution to both traditional (e.g. monetary) and social reward processing, and to differentiate it from the role of the basal ganglia in reward processing. Project coordinated by Haroon Popal, Katie Jobson, Linda Hoffman, and Julia Foley.
We’re investigating vascular risk factors for brain and behavioral outcomes in normal and pathological aging. This work is done in collaboration with Dr. Jason Chein and Linda Hoffman.