Profiles

Research in my lab is predominantly focused on understanding the control processes and contextual influences that modulate one’s ability to encode information into memory, maintain information in the service of goal-directed behavior, and retrieve relevant episodic details from the past. To characterize the underlying cognitive mechanisms, I have developed and utilized a wide range of innovative behavioral task paradigms. To gain leverage on the neural mechanisms, I have applied state-of-the-art multivariate analysis techniques that exploit the full richness of neuroimaging data. Rather than merely using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to document the contributions of individual brain regions, my work seeks to characterize the dynamic interactions between regions as well as to decode the informational content of distributed brain activity patterns. The goal of my fMRI experiments is never solely to document what a specific brain region or network does, but rather to derive insights that can bolster and constrain our understanding of memory-guided behavior. Many of my projects aim to characterize individual differences in cognitive abilities, and often to isolate functional or structural imaging correlates of this variance.

Where possible, I strive to enhance the ecological validity of my experiments by evaluating memories formed in naturalistic settings. For instance, I have studied autobiographical memory by capturing people’s life events with wearable cameras, explored contextual effects by having participants navigate immersive virtual reality (VR) environments as they learn, and investigated personal identity memory using video-based learning tasks. In recently funded collaborative work, we are recording from hippocampal neurons as humans with implanted electrodes navigate real-world environments and later recall their experiences.

In other lines of research, I have employed structural MRI measures such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to identify white matter pathways that underlie differences in people’s abilities to strategically control the memorization of valuable information. And I have been using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to modulate prefrontal function and identify causal pathways of top-down influence on memory formation and retrieval. Although the bulk of my work has sought to elucidate basic mechanisms of memory in the healthy adult brain, I conduct collaborative research examining functional and structural changes associated with cognitive aging and psychopathology.