Cognitive Aging and Dementia: Cognitive function declines as we age. As our thinking and memory skills decline, the rate of functional dependence, mortality, and acute illness requiring hospitalization increases. Increased rates of cognitive and functional decline associated with dementia represent a growing concern in light of our rapidly aging population. There are currently a paucity of effective treatments for preventing dementia or recovering age-related cognitive decline. A variety of methods have been proposed to counteract cognitive aging and/or slow onset of dementia (e.g., cognitive training). Unfortunately, these techniques have limited degrees of success and transfer to everyday life. My work demonstrates that combining treatments like cognitive training with non-invasive brain stimulation (tDCS, TMS, tACS) facilitates neural plastic response, improves cognitive abilities (specifically working memory, attention, and speed of processing), and leads to long-term improvement. In combination with modern multimodal neuroimaging and electrophysiology recording, this work not only identifies mechanisms underlying improvement, but also provides information important for further optimizing treatment effectiveness. This work has recently led to funding of the largest and only Phase III randomized clinical trial for tDCS as an adjunctive method with cognitive training to combat cognitive aging and slow dementia onset. In addition, my lab is funded to investigate mobility enhancement in older adults, treat chronic knee osteoarthritic pain, and enhance working memory using a variety of non-invasive electrical brain stimulation methods in Phase II trials. At present, my lab maintains over 7 million dollars in NIH funding to investigate non-invasive brain stimulation-related interventions. In addition, my lab also maintains funding to investigate a variety of non-pharmacological compounds in a Phase II pilot clinical trials to investigate novel methods for improving brain metabolism, neuroplasticity, and cognitive function. This work capitalizes on novel methods for imaging mitochondrial function and cerebral energy metabolism in the brain, as well as state of the art diffusion-weighted and functional imaging methods. Collectively, my work aims to slow or reverse the effects of cognitive aging and slow the onset of dementia using non-invasive and minimally invasive approaches. In addition, the extension of my work to chronic pain and mobility decline in older adults represents an exciting new arm of my intervention work.

• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Attention
• Clinical Translational Neuroscience
• Cognitive Aging
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Dementia
• MR imaging
• Neuroimaging Methods
• Neuromodulation
• Neuroplasticity
• Non-invasive Brain Stimulation
• Speed of Processing
• Working Memory