Bruna Martins
Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, UMass

“Cracking the age-related emotion-cognition paradox: Linking memory to late-life emotion regulation”

Emotion regulation processes improve across the lifespan, despite declining cognitive functioning and memory across the lifespan- a paradox that remains poorly understood. This talk will discuss how self-reflective memory is preserved in older adults, and enhanced connectivity of self-reflective and cognitive networks in the brain may promote better emotional outcomes in the elderly.  Distraction to autobiographical events may be less effortful than finding the silver lining in a stressful situation, though both are equally effective for older adults. Finally, Dr. Martins  will discuss her future areas of research, including investigating emotional processing in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and behavioral and network interventions to improve affect regulation in populations with cognitive limitations.

This talk is part of the UMass Week of Memory and Forgetting