Research

Research in the lab generally focuses on the intersection of aging, psychosocial outcomes, and psychopathology. Much of our work employs genetically informed longitudinal studies and population-based longitudinal studies. The former includes data from the Louisville Twin Study, longitudinal studies in the Swedish Twin Registry, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and the Michigan State University Twin Register. The latter includes the Health and Retirement Study and the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.

In addition to these data resources, we collect novel data in the lab to address our clinical aging and lifespan development questions. Our largest data collection effort is in the Louisville Twin Study, which is conducted out of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Louisville as part of a National Institute on Aging/NIH funded effort to clarify the genetic and environmental factors that mediate cognitive development, cognitive aging, and pre-clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (R01 AG063949-01). In the past we have administered psychosocial instruments to undergraduates to develop a measure of social pain. In the future, we will be carrying out experimental behavioral genetics studies.