Michael Yassa, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Professor, & Director
University of California, Irvine

Episodic Memory, Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease

Memory is the sum of who we are. We strive to understand how brains can learn and remember information and in using this knowledge to improve the human condition. In particular, we focus on how our memory abilities change with age and how they deteriorate in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. We use brain imaging and digital cognitive tasks to assess brain circuits impacted by aging and Alzheimer’s in detail, with the goal of developing diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic approaches. In this talk, I will highlight some of our recent work on developing new biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease during the preclinical (i.e. asymptomatic) stage and suggest that excitation-inhibition imbalance, a lesser known but highly targetable mechanistic player, may be a major culprit in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease. 

Faculty Host: Jim Knierim