Ebner Lab
Principal Investigator: Natalie C Ebner
Institution: University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
Primary Subfield: Neuroscience
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
Project Summary. Much of human interaction is based on trust. Aging has been associated with deficits in trust- related decision making, likely further exacerbated in age-associated neurodegenerative disease (Alzheimer's disease/AD), possibly underlying the dramatically growing public health problem of elder fraud. Optimal trust- related decision making and avoiding exploitation require the ability to learn about the trustworthiness of social partners across multiple interactions, but the role that learning plays in determining age deficits in trust decisions is currently unknown. To address this gap, this project will (i) characterize basic cognitive processes and neural mechanisms in learning to trust and distrust in healthy aging and in older individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and a family history of AD, representing an `early' preclinical AD group; and (ii) probe the malleability of these processes with training to form the foundation for future clinical intervention toward reducing exploitation vulnerability in aging. The proposed work is conceptually embedded in the Changes in Integration for Social Decisions in Aging (CISDA) framework. This framework describ…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01AG072658-05: Characterizing and modulating neurocognitive processes of learning to trust and distrust in aging (2026)
- 1R01AG103545-01: Understanding and Enhancing Interoception toward Reducing Exploitation Risk in Aging and ADRD: Mechanisms and Trainability (2026)
- 5R01AG072658-04: Characterizing and modulating neurocognitive processes of learning to trust and distrust in aging (2025)
- 3R01AG072658-03S2: Characterizing and modulating neurocognitive processes of learning to trust and distrust in aging (2024)
- 5R01AG072658-03: Characterizing and modulating neurocognitive processes of learning to trust and distrust in aging (2024)
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