Presented By: University of Michigan Retirees Association (UMRA)
Brain Aging and What You Can Do About It
Thad Polk Samuel D. Epstein Collegiate Professor of Psychology, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and Professor of Psychology in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Chair of the Cognitive Neuroscience Area at the Michigan Neuroscience Institute
Professor Polk will present findings from the Computational & Cognitive Neuroscience Lab on the neural architecture that underlies cognition, that is, the set of fixed neural structures and processes that give rise to cognition. What are the parts, how do they work, and how do they interact to produce the mind? Ultimately, researchers aim to understand how the cognitive architecture is determined (e.g., which aspects are genetic), how the architecture changes as a result of experience and normal aging, and how it normally functions. He will discuss brain aging and what can be done about it, including how the brain changes as we age and steps we can take to age more gracefully.
