Welcome to the Brain Health Equity in Aging and
Memory (BHEAM) Lab
Principal Investigator: Dr. M. Natasha Rajah, Ph.D. (The Rajah Lab)
We conduct research in the cognitive neuroscience of aging and dementia prevention with a focus on understanding how biological sex, gender, and diversity-related factors affect brain health and memory function in aging. Our current research projects cover a variety of topics, including:
- How the brain encodes and retrieves episodic memories – our memories for past personal experiences
- How aging affects episodic memory, cognition, and brain structure and function
- Sex and gender differences in brain aging and cognition
- Midlife as a critical period in adulthood
- the effect of menopause on brain structure, function and cognition
- the effect of family history and genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) on brain structure, function and memory in women and men
- How individual differences in lifestyle factors and social determinants of health effect brain aging and cognition in women and men
In all our research we apply a health equity lens and engage persons from diverse ethnic and social demographic backgrounds to ensure our research findings are more representative of the Canadian population.
Our Primary Lab is located at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Toronto Metropolitan University. We have a secondary data collection site for the Brain Health at Midlife and Menopause (BHAMM) Study ongoing at the Douglas Research Centre, McGill University, where Dr. Rajah is an Adjunct Faculty.
Our research is funded by:
