Effects of aging on the discrimination of similar memories.

Aging is frequently accompanied by a decrease in memory. However, there are certain aspects of memory that may be more affected than others. For example, the ability to discriminate one event from another in memory when these experiences have been similar. We generate a memory test capable of differentiating which aspects of the storage of … Continued

Effects of early stress on alcohol consumption.

Exposure to stressful situations during the first years of life has been shown to have profound consequences on the growth and development of an individual throughout life. Early side effects increase the risk of post-traumatic stress, depression, and addiction to drugs of abuse, such as alcohol. We will study the cognitive alterations induced in the … Continued

Feeling your heart: A trans-sectional study of cardiac reinnervation and brain activity through interoception

The objective of this project is to determine the degree of cardiac re-innervation with multiple measures of heart-brain and heart-peripheral system integration over time in a transplant population ranging from year 1 to year 16 post-transplantation. Likewise, this study will address the cardiac and cerebral bases of interoception in this group of patients. The experimental … Continued

Study of contextual cues

Recent studies suggest that cognition is a contextual process that does not function universally or statically. Our laboratory studies the effects of contextual cues on brain correlates of various cognitive processes in healthy participants and in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and ADHD.

Neural bases of moral cognition

Thanks to the deep and complex community life of the human beings, some cognitive functions necessary for establishing and maintaining healthy social interactions have arisen. The ability to judge what is morally correct from what is morally incorrect is perhaps one of the most complex cognitive functions, not only because it requires relying on a … Continued