Our Faculty

headshot of Michael Dulas

Michael Dulas

Assistant Professor

Psychology
S4 124

Background

Michael Dulas runs the Cognition, Aging and Memory Performance (CAMP) Lab, which started in Fall 2023. His research seeks to understand the distinct and interactive roles of the hippocampus and PFC in relational memory, the ability to bind together information into relational representations and to retrieve/use those representations in service of ongoing goals. Specifically, Dulas is interested in how these systems are impacted by healthy aging and brain injury.

Using neuroimaging, eye-tracking and neuropsychological methods, Dulas seeks to differentiate healthy age-related changes in memory and its neural correlates from those that may be tied to injury and/or pathology. For example, he has demonstrated that healthy aging may be typified by under-recruitment of PFC processes, underlying memory impairments. In contrast, alterations in hippocampal function may suggest pathological aging and/or injury. Critically, his work has also shown that under-recruitment effects in healthy older adults can be ameliorated with environmental support.

Dulas currently collaborates with Melissa Duff at Vanderbilt University and Neal Cohen at the University of Illinois as part of a project investigating the impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on the cognitive and neural processes of relational memory. Recent findings have shown that TBI impairs relational memory even when information must only be maintained for a few seconds and that TBI disrupts all domains of relational memory.

Select Publications

  • Dulas, M. R., Schwarb, H., Cannavale, C. N., & Cohen, N. J. (2021). Should context hold a special place in hippocampal memory?. Psychology of learning and motivation, 75, 1-35.
  • Dulas, M. R., Morrow, E. L., Schwarb, H., Cohen, N. J., & Duff, M. C. (2022). Temporal order memory impairments in individuals with moderate-severe traumatic brain injury. Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology, 44(3), 210-225.
  • Duarte, A., & Dulas, M. (2020). Episodic memory decline in aging. In A. K. Thomas & A. Gutchess (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Aging: A Life Course Perspective (pp. 200-217). Cambridge University Press.
  • Dulas, M. R., & Duarte, A. (2016). Age-related changes in overcoming proactive interference in associative memory: The role of PFC-mediated executive control processes at retrieval. Neuroimage, 132, 116-128.


Education

  • Postdoctoral fellowship, University of Illinois
  • MS and PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • BS, University of Michigan

Research Interests

  • Cognitive neuroscience of memory and aging
  • PFC and hippocampal interactions
  • Impact of aging and/or brain injury on relational memory
  • Role of eye movements in memory and its usage

Teaching Interests

  • PSYC 351: Perception
  • PSYC 473A: Prefrontal Cortex and Executive Function
  • PSYC 511: Graduate Module in Memory

More Info