Grant: Canada Research Chairs

The Canadian population is aging. According to Statistics Canada, seniors currently account for one-fifth of the population and this is expected to rise to one-quarter by 2059. It is now more critical than ever to understand how aging affects the mind and brain. Delineating which cognitive processes decline, which are preserved, and how these processes interact in the brain improves our ability to target those functions that require intervention and harness those that are preserved. The overarching goal of Dr. Campbell’s research program is to understand how memory is affected by age differences in attentional control, which is the ability to focus on things we want to remember while blocking out irrelevant distraction. Across three lines of research involving younger (18-30 years) and older (65+ years) adult participants, Dr. Campbell will use both behavioural and neuroimaging methods (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography) to: 1) investigate age differences in the ability to prevent distraction from cluttering short-term memory; 2) determine how age differences in brain structure and function affect the formation of associations in long-term memory; and 3) test the implications of reduced attentional control for older adults’ memory in everyday life. This work is novel because it suggests that a major cause of age-related declines in both short- and long-term memory is attention to the wrong information. Dr. Campbell’s research has shown that older adults attend to more distracting information, possibly due to reduced activation of frontal and parietal brain regions responsible for controlling attention. While attending to distracting information often disrupts performance, it can also boost memory and decision making when previously distracting information later becomes relevant (e.g., if the solution to a current crossword puzzle recently appeared in the margins of one’s newspaper). Further, contrary to common stereotypes about aging, Dr. Campbell’s research has shown that some memory processes are preserved with age (e.g., the ability to form new associations, such as between a face and a name). Indeed, older adults seem to form more associations than younger adults, and these can sometimes help or hurt memory depending on the context. Taken together, this work challenges common assumptions about aging and suggests that memory interventions should actually aim to improve attention.