Interested in participating in USC research studies on aging?

There are a variety of research projects going on at the Davis School of Gerontology and in affiliated departments at USC investigating how aging affects thinking and emotion and what can be done to maintain healthy minds as we age. Here is a list of the USC Healthy Minds faculty members and brief descriptions of what their projects focus on:

• Antonio Damasio and Hanna Damasio: The normal structure of the human brain; brain function during the experience of emotion, musical performance and decision making
• Gerald Davison: Positive emotions like happiness and life satisfaction in older adults
• Margaret Gatz: Risk and protective factors for cognition and dementia
• Bob Knight: Emotion and thinking and aging
• Mara Mather: Age differences in decision making and emotional memory/learning
• Margaret McLaughlin: Using computer games to enhance older adults' cognitive functioning
• Thomas Parsons: Computerized neuropsychological testing in aging and the impact of cognitive problems on activities of daily living
• Albert Rizzo: Using Virtual Reality to measure and train cognitive and motor abilities in older adults
• Lon Schneider: Clinical studies of Alzheimer's Disease
• Bosco Tjan: Vision of older adults and image-enhancement technologies
• David Walsh: Age differences in decision making and beliefs
• Elizabeth Zelinski: Cognition, memory and language comprehension in older adults

These studies typically involve completing various cognitive tasks and answering questionnaires; a few of them also use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record brain activity while people complete cognitive tasks. Some studies pay volunteers a stipend for their time; others involve unpaid volunteers. Some of the studies only involve older participants, but many of the studies also include younger and middle-aged adults in order to compare cognitive processes across different age groups.

We usually recruit participants from the community by putting advertisements in newspapers and websites, flyers in senior centers and notices in various newsletters. In addition to advertising to recruiting new participants for each study, we maintain a list of people who have previously expressed an interest in participating in studies on emotion, cognition and aging. Only the researchers listed above and their staff will be permitted access to this list. This list provides an opportunity for researchers and interested participants to connect.

If you were to join this list, you might be contacted by these researchers or their research staff members to let you know about studies for which you might be eligible. If contacted, you would have the opportunity to ask questions about the new study and decide at that point whether you were interested in participating. The researchers might also ask you questions to find out if you were eligible for their study.

We would maintain a record of the preferences you state about what type of studies you would like to be contacted about and about how often you would like to participate in studies. We would also keep a record of when you were contacted and when you participated in a study so that we do not contact you about studies more often than you would like. Other than records of when you were contacted or when you participated in a study, the only information that researchers would be able to access about you would be the information that you specify on the brief questionnaire. No information about your performance in any study would be included in this list and your contact information will be treated in a confidential manner. We will not distribute your information to anyone not affiliated with the USC Healthy Minds research projects.

You may remove your name at any point from the list by contacting Dr. Mara Mather at 213-740-9543 or by email.

If you are interested in the possibility of participating in USC research studies by these faculty members and their research associates, please fill out your contact information here. Completion of the contact information indicates you are interested in being contacted about future studies, but does not obligate you to participate in any study. Please print out or save a copy of this page for your records.