Research Summary
Cognitive and Brain Aging. I'm interested in how cognition changes across the adult life span, as well as factors that mediate individual differences in cognitive and brain aging (i.e., genetics, modifyable lifestyle factors, health and medical conditions).
Implicit Memory. I am interested in priming, a type of implicit (unconscious) memory and how it changes across the adult lifespan and in age-related memory disorders. While explicit (conscious) memory declines with health aging, priming often remains intact in older adults or shows smaller declines. I am also studying which aspects of brain function and structure underlie preserved priming in old age, as well as age-related changes in priming.
Neural Basis of Cognitive Reserve. I am interested in how individual differences in the efficiency, capacity, and speed of neural processing mediate age-related changes in cognition, as well as the clinical expression of age-related brain pathology.
Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease. We are investigating the cognitive and brain changes that precede the onset of cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). The goal is to identify biomarkers that predict which healthy individuals are at risk for AD as early as possible.
Selected Publications
Pettigrew, C., Soldan, A., Moghekar, A., Wang, M.C., Gross, A., O’Brien, R., & Albert, M. (in press). Relationship between cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease and cognition in cognitively normal older adults. Neuropsychologia.
Resnick, S. M., Bilgel, M., Moghekar, A., Yang, A., Cai, Q., Wang, M.C., Thambisetty, M., Prince, J., Zhou, Y., Soldan, A., Wong, D., O’Brien, R., Ferrucci, L., & Albert, M. (2015). Changes in Aβ biomarkers and associations with APOE genotype in two longitudinal cohorts. Neurobiology of Aging, 36(8), 2333-2339.
Soldan, A., Pettigrew, C., Lu, Y., Wang, M. C., Selnes, O., Albert, M., Brown, T., Ratnanather, T., Younes, L., Miller, M. I., and the BIOCARD Research Team. (2015). Relationship of medial temporal lobe atrophy, APOE genotype, and cognitive reserve in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Human Brain Mapping, 36(7), 2826-2841
Phillips, D.J., McGlaughlin, A., Ruth, D., Jager, L.R., & Soldan, A. (2015). Graph theoretic analysis of structural connectivity across the spectrum of Alzheimer's disease: The importance of graph creation methods. NeuroImage: Clinical, 7, 377-390.
Speer, M., & Soldan, A. (2015). ERP correlates of cognitive reserve in young and older adults. Neurobiology of Aging, 36(3), 1424-1434.
Diehl, J.J., Frost, S.J., Sherman, G., Mencl, E., Kurian, A., Molfese, P., Landi, N., Preston, J., Soldan, A., Fulbright, R.K., Rueckl, J., Seidenberg, M.S., & Pugh, K.R. (2014). Neural correlates of language and non-language visualspatial processing in adolescents with reading disability. NeuroImage, 101, 653–666.
Albert, M., Soldan, A., Gottesman, R., McKhann, G., Sacktor, N., Farrington, L., Grega, M., Turner, R.S., Lu, Y., Li, S., Wang, M-C., Selnes, O., and the BIOCARD Research Team. (2014). Cognitive changes preceding clinical symptom onset of Mild Cognitive Impairment. Current Alzheimer Research, 11(8), 773-784.
Pettigrew, C., Soldan, A., Li., S., Wang, M., Selnes, O., Moghekar, A., O’Brien, R., Albert, M., & the BIOCARD Research Team. (2013). Relationship of cognitive reserve and APOE status to the emergence of clinical symptoms in preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease. Cognitive Neuroscience, 4(3-4), 136-142.
Soldan, A., Pettigrew, C., Li, S., Wang, M., Moghekar, A., Selnes, O., Albert, M., O’Brien, R., & the BIOCARD Research Team. (2013). Relationship of cognitive reserve and CSF biomarkers to emergence of clinical symptoms in preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease. Neurobiology of Aging, 34(12), 2827-2834.
Gordon, L., Soldan, A., Thomas, A. K., & Stern, Y. (2013). Effect of repetition lag on priming of unfamiliar visual objects in young and older adults. Psychology & Aging. 28(1), 219-231.
Soldan, A., Clarke, B., Colleran, C., & Kuras, Y. (2012). Priming and Stimulus-Response Learning in Perceptual Classification Tasks. Memory, 20(4), 400-413.
Gazes, Y., Soldan, A., & Stern, Y. (2012). Alzheimer’s Disease. In V. S. Ramachandran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 2nd Edition: Academic Press, Elsevier.
Soldan, A., Habeck, C., Gazes, Y., & Stern, Y. (2010). Neural mechanisms of repetition priming of familiar and globally unfamiliar visual objects. Brain Research, 1343, 122-134.
Soldan, A., Hilton, H.J., Cooper, L.A., & Stern, Y. (2009). Priming for familiar and unfamiliar visual objects over delays in young and older adults. Psychology & Aging, 24(1), 93-104.
Soldan, A., & Mangels, J.A., Cooper, L.A. (2008). Effects of attention on perceptual priming of novel visual objects. Memory, 16(8), 873-895.
Soldan, A., Gazes, Y., Hilton, H.J., & Stern, Y. (2008). Aging does not affect brain activation patterns associated with perceptual priming of novel objects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(10), 1-15.
Soldan, A., Zarahn, E., Hilton, H.J., Stern, Y. (2008). Global familiarity of visual stimuli affects repetition-related neural plasticity but not repetition priming. NeuroImage, 39, 515-526.
Soldan, A., & Stern, Y. (2007). Alzheimer’s Disease.In Darity, W. A., Jr. (Ed), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd edition. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.
Soldan, A., Mangels, J.A., & Cooper, L.A. (2006). Evaluating models of object-decision priming: Evidence from ERP repetition effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32(2), 230-248.