Social and Emotional Processes in Aging

Have you ever wondered why you won't forget the moment your child was born or the feeling of your first kiss? Our memories are influenced by our emotions. Our cognitive capacities such as reasoning, memory, and attention are modified by our mood and our emotions, as well as the emotional contents of that particular situation.

To understand such a complex interaction, we investigate how our brain encodes and processes emotional information! In addition, the way our emotions impact our cognitive capacities changes as we age. So here we are also examining how our aging affects the processing of social-emotional cues. In one project, we are aiming to gain a deeper understanding of how aging impacts deep brain structures and their functions during social behaviours! 

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Our work so far has shed light on the neural mechanisms of motivational bias in memory among the elderly population. We showed that older adults are better able to regulate their negative emotions and as a result, they are more focused on the positive aspects of a situation! We are taking a deeper look into implications of such bias for mental health in the elderly population! 

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Current projects:

>> Neuromechanisms of processing ambiguity in facial expressions across the lifespan

>>Segregation and integration of neural networks involved in emotion regulation

>>Topological measures of brain networks and social-emotional functions 

>>Connectome-based prediction model of psychopathology across the lifespan 

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