Research Summary

Randy Buckner’s laboratory explores how brain systems support memory function and how these systems change during both typical aging and aging associated with disease. Two themes run through this work. First, acts of memory are hypothesized to depend on a collection of cobbled-together processes that aid memory decisions. Memory is influenced by the intentions of the subject, emotion, and unconscious processes. Guided by this idea, the Buckner laboratory seeks to characterize brain networks that support distinct components of memory encoding and retrieval and ask how they combine to facilitate memory in all of its forms. Second, multiple, dissociated factors are hypothesized to affect older adults that combine in their influences on memory abilities and cognitive decline. This second theme has led the laboratory to use molecular, structural, and functional imaging methods to characterize distinct age-dependent cascades that influence memory function. Two emerging areas of interest relate to development across the lifespan and individual differences. The laboratory is also interested in innovating new methods to answer these questions including the development of processing and neuroinformatics tools to facilitate large-scale data analysis.