Growing Up in Aging Neuroscience A mini-symposium for current and future aging neuroscientists March 13, 2020 | Brown University Event Schedule 8:30 – 9:20 Registration and Breakfast 9:20 – 9:30 Introduction and Welcome 9:30 – 10:00 Does Intrinsic Motivation Become More Influential as We Age? Julia Spaniol, Ryerson University 10:00 – 10:30 Behavioral and Brain Bases of Spatial Memory Deficits in Aging Lauren Richmond, Stony Brook University 10:30 – 10:45 Break 10:45 – 11:00 Influences of Age and Culture on Memory Angela Gutchess, Brandeis University 11:15 – 11:45 Dopamine in PET Aging Research Anne Berry, Brandeis University 11:45 – 1:15 Lunch on your own 1:30 – 2:00 Emotion Regulation and Aging: What I used to think, what I think now, and why Derek Isaacowitz, Northeastern University 2:00 – 2:30 How Older Adults Remeber Emotional Events Elizabeth Kensinger, Boston College 2:30 – 3:30 Growing Up in Aging Neuroscience Panel Julia Spaniol (Ryerson) Lauren Richmond (Stony Brook) Angela Gutchess (Brandeis) Anne Berry (Brandeis) Derek Isaacowitz (Northeastern) Elizabeth Kensinger (Boston College) Hwamee Oh (Brown) 3:45 – 5:30 Social Networking Reception Carney Institute for Brain Sciences (4th Floor) Event Location All of the talks will take place in the Petteruti Lounge (2nd Floor) at the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center. When you enter through the archway, go up the stairs. You can then take the elevator or the stairs to the second floor. Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center Petteruti Lounge (2nd Floor) 75 Waterman Street Providence, RI, 02912 The Social Networking Reception will take place at the 4th floor of the Carney Institute for Brain Science (4th Floor) Carney Institute for Brain Sciences 164 Angell Street Providence, RI, 02906 Campus Map: About the Speakers Julia Spaniol Does Intrinsic Motivation become more influential as we age? ABSTRACT Motivation, the drive to expend effort towards a goal, shapes cognitive engagement and performance across the lifespan. Motivation can be either intrinsic (derived from personal goals and interests) or extrinsic (linked to instrumental reward or punishment). Successful aging may depend in no small measure on individuals’ motivation to initiate and sustain mentally challenging activities on a regular basis. Yet, dopaminergic and noradrenergic circuits critical for motivated cognition tend to show widespread decline in older adults. In this talk I review evidence from behavioral, ERP, and fMRI studies that support the hypothesis that the influence of extrinsic motivation on neurocognitive performance fades whereas intrinsic motivation becomes more influential as we age. I will also briefly discuss open questions for research on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and cognition in aging, as well as potential real-world implications of this research. OFFICIAL BIO Julia earned her PhD in Psychology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 2003. Supervised by Ute Bayen, Julia’s doctoral work examined memory and decision processes in healthy aging using behavioral methods. During her post- doctoral positions with Dave Madden at Duke University Medical Center and with Cheryl Grady at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, Julia gained training in cognitive neuroscience methods and became interested in the interplay of affective and cognitive functions in aging. Since 2007 Julia has directed the Memory and Decision Processes Lab at Ryerson University in Toronto, and in 2014 she was named Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Aging. Julia and her trainees use behavioral and neuroscience approaches to study how extrinsic and intrinsic motivation influence cognitive control, memory, decision making, and future-oriented cognition in younger and older adults. Julia’s research has been continuously supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and other Canadian funding agencies. Julia is very involved in teaching and research training for undergraduate and graduate students and she prioritizes the inclusion of women and members of underrepresented groups in scientific training and research. To date Julia has graduated 4 PhDs, all of whom now hold academic or nonacademic positions directly related to their graduate training. Julia is also proud of the many undergraduate students who have gained research experience in her lab before moving on to a variety of graduate and professional programs. UNOFFICIAL BIO I grew up in a small town in Saarland, a region in Southwest Germany that borders France and Luxembourg. My parents were high school teachers who instilled in me a sense of curiosity and a love of travel. After graduating high school, I took a gap year during which I lived in Puebla, Mexico, and volunteered in a nursing home. I learned to speak Spanish fluently (a skill I have sadly lost since) and developed an interest in aging and older adults. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study, picked psychology on a whim, and ended up returning to Germany to attend Trier University. At Trier, I took introductory-level cognitive and lifespan-psychology courses with junior faculty members Axel Buchner and Klaus Rothermund (now at the Universities of Duesseldorf and Jena, respectively). I loved these courses and looked to Axel and Klaus as unofficial mentors. With their encouragement, I applied to graduate programs in the U.S. after 3 years in Trier, and was admitted to the University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After one year at Maryland, I moved south and completed my MA and PhD at UNC, where I faked interest in college basketball without much success. I met my (American) husband at UNC, and together we moved to Canada and somehow managed to land tenure-track jobs in the same city. Outside of academia, I am a major film nerd and I keep a spreadsheet – with rankings – of all the movies I’ve ever seen. Lauren Richmond Behavioral and Brain Bases of Spatial Memory Deficits in Aging ABSTRACT Older adults are known to have more difficulty with spatial navigation and spatial memory than younger adults on average, but the reason for this age-related decrement in this type of skill is poorly understood. However, there is a large degree of inter-individual variability in this type of skill even in healthy younger samples. Using a novel naturalistic task to test spatial memory, behavioral data comparing younger and older adult performance on a variety of spatial memory measures will be discussed, as well as the neural basis for successful spatial memory performance in older adults. OFFICIAL BIO Lauren Richmond is an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science in the Dept of Psychology at Stony Brook University. She attended Marist college for her BA and MA degrees and Temple University for her PhD. Prior to her appointment at Stony Brook University, Lauren was a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. Lauren’s research focuses on everyday memory and performance of memory-based activities across the lifespan in ecological contexts. In her research, Lauren uses behavioral, neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and eye tracking methods. Lauren has conducted research in both healthy older adults and patient populations. Lauren’s research has been supported by the National Institute on Aging. UNOFFICIAL BIO Lauren Richmond is from the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA and was a shy and quiet child who generally liked books more than people. Feeling the need to ‘get out’ of Pennsylvania at the end of high school, Lauren attended a small, teaching- oriented liberal arts school in New York’s Hudson Valley. This was a somewhat unusual choice: Lauren’s family was small and tight-knit, with no one living more than a 1-hour drive away from extended family members, but her parents encouraged and supported her in going a bit further out of the box. Lauren originally chose to major in Psychology with the intention of going into clinical psychology, but quickly realized that she would not be a good clinician. Still, Lauren liked her courses and professors and thus decided to switch gears towards exploring research-oriented careers in the field. Unfortunately, at a small, teaching-oriented liberal arts school the opportunities to get involved in faculty research were few and far between. Lauren was lucky enough to land a research-oriented internship opportunity at the Nathan Kline Institute working on a neuroimaging study in patients with schizophrenia during the spring semester of her junior year in college. This experience cemented her interest in pursuing cognitive neuroscience as a career, but she needed more research experience to be a competitive PhD applicant. In order to get it, Lauren then landed a research assistant position in a neurology lab where her day- to-day involved conducting cognitive testing on adult patients with dementia. Lauren started her PhD in 2009 at Temple University in a neuroscience lab around the time of the ‘working memory training’ craze and did research in this vein throughout her PhD. Lauren then went on to a postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis where she was able to gain a great deal of experience in cognitive aging and in testing memory performance in more ecological contexts, being funded first by a grant to her advisor and then by an individual NRSA. In 2018, Lauren landed back in the northeast much to the delight of her family in Pennsylvania. Outside of new faculty life, Lauren (still) enjoys reading, as well as walking her dog, cooking, and exploring her new hometown. Angela Gutchess Influences of Age on Culture and Memory ABSTRACT In my talk, I will discuss research my lab has conducted investigating how aging and culture affect memory. I will focus on cross-cultural differences in memory, exploring how culture can act as a lens to shape information processing. This encompasses our work on how culture influences self-referencing effects, the use of categories in memory, and memory for specific visual details, and considers behavioral and neural measures as well as how these cultural differences could be impacted by aging.