Frontiers of BrainHealth

TALK TITLE COMING SOON: Don't miss the opening talk for the fall 2026 season of Frontiers of BrainHealth, our popular neuroscience lecture series, featuring Binu Thomas, PhD, of UT Southwestern Medical Center, whose current research seeks to understand brain vascular function, metabolism and physiology in aging, mild cognitive impairment, hypertension, obesity and its comorbidities as it relates to dementia risk. 

Season Kickoff

UT Dallas researcher Chandramallika Basak, PhD, director of the Lifespan Neuroscience and Cognition (LiNC) Lab at the Center for Vital Longevity, shares insights into leading-edge controlled randomized trials (CRTs) conducted by her lab, focused on improving cognition in older adults. These studies identify moderators and mediators of cognitive training in both healthy aging and pre-clinical Alzheimer's disease (AD), as well as the game features of efficacious videogame training – insights that can guide design of best cognitive training for healthy aging and preclinical AD/early AD.

Of Birds and Brain: Computerized Cognitive Training and Brain Plasticity for Alzheimer's Prevention

Dr. Ruchika Prakash is a distinguished professor of psychology at The Ohio State University, where she also serves as director of the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging. Mind-body interventions encompass a growing range of non-pharmacological approaches that are increasingly being used to support cognitive and brain health in older adults. Capitalizing on the reciprocal relationship between psychological and physiological processes, these interventions are designed to improve physical functioning through changes in in mental health and well-being, and vice versa. Mindfulness-based interventions represent one class of mind-body interventions and have been demonstrated to reduce stress, improve attentional control, and enhance overall quality of life. In this talk, Dr. Prakash will review evidence from Stage I and Stage II randomized controlled trials showcasing the effects of these interventions for reducing mind-wandering, improving attentional control and everyday cognition, and decreasing levels of tau pathology in preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease.   

Mind-Body Interventions for Cognitive and Brain Health 

Millions of people experience concussions and other forms of brain injury each year and the impact on cognitive health can last a lifetime. UTSW Medical Center research leader Munro Cullum, PhD, shares emerging research on the connections between concussion, repetitive head trauma and the risk of developing dementia later in life, exploring diagnosis, prognosis, and long-term outcomes following brain injury, including concussion, repetitive head hits, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Brain Injury and Risk of Dementia

If intelligence can increasingly be modeled, measured, and replicated, what remains distinctive about human beings? SMU Perkins School of Theology professor Robert Hunt, PhD, argues that the age of AI represents a “Copernican revolution” in our understanding of intelligence. Just as Copernicus removed humanity from the physical center of the universe, AI is removing humans from the intellectual center of the world they inhabit. 

AI and the Copernican Revolution in Intelligence 

Ian Robertson, PhD, speaks during BrainHealth Week 2025.

Headshot of a man smiling dressed in a grey suit and blue and white button-down shirt.

Dementia is one of the main culprits undermining what should be our most rewarding years. Most current dementia-prevention trials are labor-intensive and hence expensive and difficult to scale to the hundreds of millions who need it. Internationally recognized cognitive neuroscientist Ian Robertson, PhD, shares an inside look at The BrainHealth Project, and how the longitudinal study is measuring and targeting improvements in the brain health of 100,000 people over ten years using a telehealth, web-based interface and real-time remote coaching. 

Brainspan: How The BrainHealth Project Can Inform Dementia Prevention 

Millie Rincón-Cortés, PhD, leads the Developmental and Maternal Neurobiology Lab at UT Dallas, a developmental behavioral neuroscience lab that studies how exposure to adversity compromises behavioral and brain function throughout the lifespan. Her research reveals how maternal adversity in rats (modelled through resource scarcity) disrupts the brain's reward circuitry, causing reduced maternal motivation and diminished responsiveness to pups. These behavioral changes correspond with disruptions in the brain's reward circuitry (also known as the mesolimbic dopamine system). Her team has further demonstrated that early life adversity affects reward-related behaviors during adolescence.

Modeling Maternal Adversity in Rodents to Study Intergenerational Effects

Dr. Melissa Petersen's is assistant professor of Family Medicine and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. Her research focuses on the utility of blood-based biomarkers in the detection of neurodegenerative disease states including Alzheimer's disease among different racial and ethnic groups. Her collaboration and work with the Health and Aging Brain Study- Health Disparities (HABS-HD) cohort allows access to a biologically well characterized sample of Non-Hispanic Whites, Black, and Hispanics ranging from age 30 and above with available MRI, PET (Amyloid, Tau), blood-based biomarkers and cognitive data.

How Blood Can Now Tell Us About Brain Health: Integration and Implementation of Blood Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease 

Vonetta Dotson, PhD is a neuropsychologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Her research focuses on positive and negative modifiers of brain health, including the intersection of depression with cognitive and brain aging, and the impact of health disparities on brain health. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Alzheimer’s Association, and private foundations. 

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Jeff Price, MFA, directs the Virtual, Augmented, and Simulation Technology (VAST) Lab at UT Dallas, where he researches the impact of immersive technologies on the study, training and understanding of human behavior. This talk explores how virtual reality, augmented reality, digital twins, spatial computing and artificial intelligence can be combined to create controlled yet highly realistic environments for studying cognition, behavior, decision-making and human performance.

Immersive Intelligence: Using Virtual Reality, Digital Twins, and AI to Understand and Enhance Human Performance 

Adolescence and young adulthood are critical developmental periods during which health-risk behaviors can emerge and become established, with important implications for long-term health and well-being. UT Arlington professors Melissa A. Lewis, PhD, and Dana M. Litt, PhD, discuss advances in digital technology that are transforming how researchers identify the cognitive, social and contextual mechanisms underlying these behaviors and how interventions are developed and delivered to reduce risk.

Understanding Risk, Improving Health: Leveraging Technology to Understand and Reduce Health-Risk Behaviors Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Don't miss the opening talk for the fall 2026 season of Frontiers of BrainHealth, our popular neuroscience lecture series, featuring cognitive neuroscientist Aron Barbey, PhD, director of the Notre Dame Human Neuroimaging Center, as he shares 
recent discoveries in network neuroscience that suggest intelligence emerges from a rich constellation of networks whose functions are orchestrated in a flexible, goal-directed manner. 

CANCELLED – Advancing the Science and Engineering of Intelligence: From Network Neuroscience to Interventions for Precision Health 

MRI Biomarkers for Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Dementia

Angela Shoup, PhD, executive director of the Callier Center for Communication Disorders, discusses how auditory access during infancy plays a vital role in shaping brain development and long-term cognitive functioning. Early and consistent exposure to sound supports the formation of neural pathways that enable speech perception, language growth, learning, and social emotional development. 

Strengthening Impact in Pediatric Hearing Health by Overcoming Barriers to Evidence-Based Care

NEW DATE: Computational psychiatry is reshaping our understanding of mental illness by integrating data-driven modeling with neurobiological insights. Andrew Michael, PhD, of Duke University examines the evolving role of brain imaging and AI in computational psychiatry, emphasizing their transformative promise, pitfalls, and path forward. 

From Data to Diagnosis: Computational Psychiatry and Brain Imaging in the Age of AI

Dr. Wig of UTD's Center for Vital Longevity describes how his lab uses network science to examine how these connections change across the adult lifespan, showing that alterations in brain network organization can predict future Alzheimer’s disease dementia beyond traditional biomarkers. 

It’s All About Your Connections: Rethinking Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease Through Brain Networks

Headshot of Andrew Eagle, PhD, in a lab setting.

Drug-associated memories can be a major driver of relapse in addiction. UTD neuroscience professor Dr. Andrew Eagle focuses on researching how the brain encodes and retrieves drug-cue memories that promote maladaptive behavior. He presents preliminary findings demonstrating that the entorhinal cortex (EC) plays a critical role in this process and explores the broader research goal of defining the neural mechanisms by which memory shapes motivation in addiction.

An Entorhinal Cortex Circuit in Cocaine Memories

Researchers have made great strides in understanding the biology of Alzheimer’s disease and learning how to detect and even treat it at the earliest stages when treatment may be most effective. Dr. Mary Sano, PhD, professor of psychiatry and the director of the Alzheimer's disease research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, shares an update. 

Understanding the Importance of Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Supporting Brain Health

Sandi Chapman, PhD, and Adam J. Woods, PhD, pictured at a BrainHealth Week event.

In partnership with UT Dallas' School of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Center for BrainHealth's 2026 Science Summit, Breakthroughs in Precision Brain Health, is a BrainHealth Week lunchtime event that is also part of our popular Frontiers of BrainHealth lecture series.

Science Summit: Breakthroughs in Precision Brain Health

Dr. Sandi Chapman asks a question during a live Frontiers of BrainHealth talk inside Center for BrainHealth's Brain Performance Institute.

Headshot of Puja K. Parekh, PhD, neuroscience professor from UT Dallas.

UTD neuroscience professor Puja K. Parekh, PhD, highlights recent work into how the brain processes information to inform goal-directed actions, decision-making and task disengagement, combining behavioral measurements with in vivo neurophysiological recordings to identify circuit mechanisms of effortful motivation and the effects of stress. The goal of these studies is to identify mechanisms to enhance therapeutic development for stress-related disorders.

Neural Substrates Underlying Effortful Behavior in Animal Models

Headshot of Dr. Hamed Ekhtiari in a bright, sunlit medical waiting area.

Addiction remains a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality worldwide. In this talk, UT Southwestern's Hamed Ekhtiari, MD, PhD, builds on two decades of human neuroimaging, neuromodulation trials and biomarker development to review the scientific rationale for mechanism-informed brain stimulation approaches in addiction treatment. 

Precision Neuromodulation for Addiction Treatment: Hopes and Challenges 

Photograph of neuroscientist Eti Ben Simon, PhD. in a lush outdoor setting

NEW DATE: Research from Eti Ben Simon, PhD, associate director of Center for BrainHealth's Sleep Innovation Laboratories, suggests that even modest sleep loss can erode social connections, hamper altruistic behavior, and heighten subjective anxiety, revealing the transformative impact of insufficient sleep on healthy adults.

Sleepless and Alone: The Impact of Sleep Loss on Human Social Behavior

Headshot of Ryan Boyd, PhD against a serene blue and white background.

Ryan Boyd PhD, UTD headshot, Frontiers 2026 speaker

UT Dallas Assistant Professor of Psychology Ryan Boyd, PhD, explores how everyday language — from tiny words like "the" and "me" to themes, narratives and expressions of self-belief — maps where attention is pointing. Highlighting recent studies, he shares how research into how communities adapt during turbulent periods and how shifts in language can foreshadow changes in well-being and mental health.

The Words That Shape Our Worlds

Composite image of researchers Byron Johnson, PhD, and Matthew Lee, PhD.

Headshot of Byron Johnson, PhD, in a library setting.

Our 2026 Frontiers season opens with Byron Johnson, PhD, and Matthew Lee, PhD, from Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion, delivering key insights from "The Global Flourishing Study" including analysis of sociodemographic patterns and predictors of flourishing across 20+ culturally and geographically diverse countries.

Wisdom About the Good Life from the Global Flourishing Study

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