Research Talk - Dr. Angela Roberts

RESEARCH TALK

Presented by: Dr. Angela Roberts

CRC Tier 2 - Data Analytics for Health

"Optimizing Cognitive Aging and Neurodegeneration Outcomes Using Digital Health Approaches "

With the rapidly aging population and associated risks for neurodegeneration, organizations globally, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, highlight the critical need for practices and policies that foster optimal aging and management of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Conducted within an interdisciplinary model, my research produces digital outcomes and functional biomarkers with high ecological validity that extend behavior measurement beyond the clinic to everyday contexts. The objective of my research is to catalyze therapeutic discoveries and inform mechanistic understandings of cognitive changes in aging and neurodegeneration. As I will discuss in this talk, my research questions are positioned broadly within a ‘complexity’ hypothesis framework that focuses on how changes in biological complexity manifest in different cognitive contexts, at varying timescales. Much of my work focuses on the development of speech-based biomarkers that penetrate diagnostic boundaries to identify key mechanisms impacted across the cognitive aging and neurodegeneration spectrum using psycholinguistic, computational, and cognitive science methods. My work is now extending beyond connected speech, seeking to understand how dynamic responsiveness of behavioral and physiological systems (e.g., speech, gait, cardiopulmonary) is affected by aging and neurodegeneration. In this presentation, I will overview my pioneering research in speech-based biomarkers. I will share the user-centered hardware and interface solutions we developed to measure the coupling/de-coupling of cross-systems behavior (from speech to cardiac functions). Additionally, I will introduce my newer research that uses digital health approaches to inform how potential losses in biological complexity manifest within, and across, behavioral systems. My presentation will focus on how this work can shift current paradigms for personalized care by identifying potential behaviors to target for promoting healthy cognitive aging and the development of biomarkers for the early detection and progression of neurodegeneration.