Hillary Schwarb, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, has earned a University of Nebraska Collaborative Initiative grant to investigate healthy aging with colleague Madhur Mangalam of the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO).
By 2030, an estimated 25% of Nebraskans will be over the age of 60. Age-related changes in balance and memory remain a major threat to independence, quality of life, and healthspan in older adults. Falls are a leading cause of injury, hospitalization, and mortality in aging populations, and memory impairments are among the earliest indicators of neurodegenerative disease including mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.
Decline in balance and memory in older adults frequently co-occur but are typically studied and treated independently. This collaborative project, "Beyond Balance: Investigating the effects of wobble-board training on brain health and memory outcomes in fall-prone older adults," seeks to remedy this gap. The study will leverage strengths in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) and biomechanics at UNO into a comprehensive investigation of a unified, brain-centered framework for understanding concurrent declines in mobility and cognition as we age.
Schwarb is an experimental psychologist who studies human learning and memory and applies neuroimaging techniques to answer questions about the organization and structure of the human brain. She leads the Translational Cognitive Neuroscience & Memory Lab.
The Collaborative Initiative grant aims to enhance the competitiveness of the University of Nebraska (NU) faculty for federal grant funding by fully leveraging the intellectual capacity and research resources across the NU campuses.
