Cognitive Aging and Dementia

Our team works to understand the psychological and biological processes that influence cognitive and motor decline in late adulthood through a behavioral and clinical neuroscientific approach. Normal and pathological conditions are studied, which includes successful aging, typical aging, mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer’s disease. Although, we have a special focus on adult development and aging (individuals over 60 years of age), our pool of participants also includes younger populations from late adolescence and beyond. We employ a wide range of methods to analyze cognitive abilities, behavior, audition, motor and respiratory functions. The infrastructure of the gerontolaboratory comprises equipment and materials to conduct neuropsychological testing, 3D motion capture techniques, advanced research audiometry, spatio-temporal gait analysis, eye-tracking, spectrogram and modern pneumotacographs for speech analysis. We furthermore collaborate with the University Hospital of North Norway to perform brain imaging (MRI).  

Below you find more detailed information about our most central projects.

• Interplay of cognition and gait in normal and pathological aging

• Age-related changes in dexterity and cognition in normal aging

• Psychomotor decline of speech production in Alzheimer’s disease and normal aging and their association with myelin degeneration.

• Assessment of cognition and respiratory function in oral verbal tasks: A life-span study with healthy individuals from adolescence to late adulthood.  
• The influence of culture and aging in human motor learning

• Unconscious cognitive bias in explicit processes of visuomotor adaptation in younger and older adults