Title: Understanding the Effects of Age on Human Cognitive Brain Function
Speaker: Joshua Goh (吳恩賜), PhD
Assistant Professor
Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences
National Taiwan University College of Medicine

Time: 2014/3/11 (Tuesday) 14:00～16:00
Location: NCU S5-101 (中央大學科五館 101 教室)

Abstract: With the rapid change toward an aging population, it is imperative to gain deeper understanding of age-related changes in human neurocognitive abilities so that more effective interventions and public policies can be developed. It is well known that aging is associated with broad declines in brain function that underlies cognitive abilities, sometimes leading to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Even in healthy older adults, cognitive abilities are still observed to be less than optimal relative to younger counterparts. Despite this, it is clear that not everyone ages in the same way, and both biological and experiential factors play important roles in determining how an individual progresses in senescence. With this basis, my laboratory uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and experimental psychological techniques to investigate group and individual differences in young to older adult neural function related to cognitive abilities such as perception, memory, executive processing, and decision-making. At present, we have found that cognitively more intact older adults have neural systems that maintain the ability to learn and flexibly adapt to various novel situations, and effectively engage compensatory processing towards these goals when necessary, even at advanced ages. Our ongoing aims are to better specify the nature of age effects on human neurocognitive function, relating these to clinical cases as well, and to identify key biological and experiential factors that promote such optimal brain aging. We highlight that cognitive aging is a large, multi-faceted issue for which the collaboration and involvement of many research teams is urgently required.