Welcome to the MAC2 Lab website!
Who are we?
The Memory, Aging, and Cognitive Control (MAC2) Research Laboratory aims to better understand how episodic memory and other cognitive processes differ across the adult lifespan. Much of our research tries to dissect environmental and lifestyle factors that affect physical health and brain health in a bidirectional manner. We investigate how such factors play a causal role in either protecting or enhancing one’s risk during both healthy aging and neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
We appreciate your interest in our lab! To learn more about our research, visit the link below.
Want to know more about us? Check out our team below!
If you’re interested in participating in the studies we do, make sure to read our participation page!
Select Publications
McDonough, I. M., Nolan, S. A.*, & Visscher, K. M. (2022). 25 Years of Neurocognitive Aging Theories: What Have We Learned? Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
Harrell, E. R., & McDonough, I. M. (2022). Episodic memory and cognition in normative aging and dementia. In T. J. Farrer & E. K. Eifert (Eds.), Dementia and Memory: Introduction for Professionals in Health and Human Services. (pp. 37-54). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
McDonough, I. M., Byrd, D., & Choi, S. L. (2022). Resilience Resources May Buffer Some Middle-Aged and Older Black Americans from Memory Decline even in the Face of Discrimination. Social Science & Medicine.
Chen, Y.-T., McDonough, I. M., Faig, K. E., Norman, G. J., & Gallo, D. A. (2022). Impact of Stereotype Threat on Brain Activity During Memory Tasks in Older Adults. Neuroimage.
Bolling, A. J., King, V. L., Enam, T., & McDonough, I. M. (2021). Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to promote long-term foreign language vocabulary learning. Brain & Cognition.
McDonough, I. M., Harrell, E. R., Black, S. R., Allen, R. S., & Parmelee, P. A. (2021). Sources of Nonreplicability in Aging Ethnoracial Health Disparities Research. Psychology and Aging.
McDonough, I. M., & Madan, C. R. (2021). Structural Complexity is Negatively Associated with Brain Activity: A Novel Multimodal Test of Compensation Theories of Aging. Neurobiology of Aging, 98, 185-196.
McDonough, I. M., Festini, S. B., & Wood, M. M. (2020). Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Review of Long-term Episodic Memory Encoding and Retrieval fMRI Studies. Ageing Research Reviews.
McDonough, I. M., Letang, S. K., & Stinson, E. A. (2019). Dementia risk elevates brain activity during memory retrieval: An fMRI analysis of middle aged and older adults. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.