Jessica Bernard

The focus of my research is understanding how the brain changes over the course of aging. I focus on a region called the cerebellum and the way that it interacts and communicates with the rest of the cortex. The cerebellum is important for motor skills like balance and learning, but we also know it plays a role in cognition -- things like memory and attention. These are areas that are impacted by the aging process, even in the absence of disease. By integrating our understanding of the cerebellum with the rest of the cortex, we can get a more complete picture of the processes associated with brain aging, and in turn, better insights into why some people may develop age-related pathology (such as Alzheimer's Disease) and others do not.