The University of Texas at Dallas’ Center for Vital Longevity (CVL) is expanding the scope of its research on optimizing cognitive health throughout life to include studies with children and teenagers.
“We have always been interested in change across the entire lifespan,” said Dr. Michael Rugg, CVL director and Distinguished Chair in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. “Most of the center’s research to this point has included participants from early adulthood through to later life. We’re adding two new research groups that strengthen and extend our mission of understanding cognitive and brain changes throughout the whole lifespan.
“We need to understand more about optimal brain development during childhood and early adolescence because it can have important consequences for how well people do cognitively in later life.”
The additions of Dr. Noa Ofen, professor of psychology, and Dr. Leehyun Yoon, assistant professor of psychology, who joined the CVL and the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) in January, are part of a multiyear initiative within BBS to expand research in lifespan cognitive neuroscience.
“Our mission remains ‘cognitive health for life.’ It works just as well for a 10-year-old as it does for a 70-year-old,” Rugg said. “The goal of understanding how we can help people have the most successful cognitive trajectory throughout their lives stays the same.”
The broadening of scope is in part a response to increasing evidence that some of the precursors of successful versus unsuccessful brain aging in later life emerge early in the lifespan — perhaps even prior to birth.
“It is increasingly clear that there is a gray area between typical age-related cognitive impairment and the more severe impairment that results from neurodegenerative disease,” Rugg said. “With the increasing recognition that changes in cognitive and brain function occur across the entire lifespan — and that some of the precursors of successful cognitive aging are rooted in development — we are expanding our research portfolio to include researchers who are studying social, cognitive and brain development.”
Ofen was previously director of the Cognitive and Brain Development Laboratory at Wayne State University. Her research there focused on discovering how brain structure and function shape human cognitive functioning across development. She is particularly interested in the hippocampus, a crucial brain structure for learning and memory that appears altered in several neurodevelopmental disorders.
“I am thrilled to be joining outstanding colleagues, the unmatched strength of the research at CVL, and the outstanding intellectual environment at BBS and the University as a whole,” she said. “I am particularly excited about how my research in developmental cognitive neuroscience not only meshes with the existing research focus across CVL, but also will be key to our vision of establishing UTD as a research hub for those interested in the brain across the lifespan.”
“We need to understand more about optimal brain development during childhood and early adolescence because it can have important consequences for how well people do cognitively in later life.”
Dr. Michael Rugg, Center for Vital Longevity director and Distinguished Chair in Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Before coming to UT Dallas, Yoon was a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. She studies social development in adolescents, with a focus on neural and psychological mechanisms of learning, thinking and presenting about the self in social contexts. Her research focuses on identifying cognitive and neural processes that are predictive of the development of mood disorders and interpersonal problems in youth. She also studies the effects of deprivation and negative social interactions on social and affective brain development.
“Although my work has focused on young people, its goals have included helping them thrive later in life,” she said. “I believe that joining CVL will add a lifespan development perspective to my research program, allowing me to test how adolescent experiences and brain function influence cognitive health in later life.”