Alberta Innovates- Health Solutions

A certain amount of forgetfulness is normal in daily life. But other factors such as disease, brain injury, or aging can seriously affect memory.

Research conducted by Heritage Scholar, Dr. Roberto Cabeza, helps to identify the brain regions involved in different forms of memory and those impaired by aging.

Memory has two main components:

• learning -- the brain puts information into long-term storage
• remembering -- the process of retrieving knowledge

Do people forget information or have difficulty learning it?

New diagnostic techniques, such as positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), provide researchers with live pictures of brain activity and help distinguish between the two processes. Dr. Cabeza says fMRI is a breakthrough that will give researchers a more precise understanding of the complexities of memory.

"For the first time in the history of memory we can actually get independent measures of learning and remembering. We can watch brain activity when people are learning information and later when theyÕre remembering it."

In preliminary studies, the Heritage researcher compared a group of seniors to a group of students to examine the effects of aging on memory. His results showed age affected both learning and remembering. Dr. Cabeza also found other areas of the brain often compensated for deficits in regions that normally control memory. "This result has interesting implications for rehabilitation."

"So far, we know that some elderly adults clearly have impaired memory while others show no deficit whatsoever. It will be very interesting to see whether this finding reflects a different use of brain function. ItÕs possible that a certain group of adults are compensating better than others."

The Heritage researcher's findings could one day have applications to Alzheimer's Disease patients, seniors, and others with severe memory problems. "If we can understand how the brain makes the compensatory changes that allow some seniors to remember better than others we could target specific treatment for their memory loss."

Dr. Roberto Cabeza is a Heritage Scholar and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology[matrix.psych.ualberta.ca] at the University of Alberta[www.ualberta.ca]. Dr. Cabeza also works in collaboration with Heritage Scholar Dr. Lori Buchanan who studies language deficits in brain injured patients. In addition to Heritage support, Dr. Cabeza receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

Study volunteers needed--Dr. Cabeza is seeking volunteers to participate in his study on memory and aging. Call (780) 492-3601 for more information.

For more information:
Alzheimer Society of Canada
The Alzheimer Page