Psychology Professor Shanna Koussaie gets $200,000 in funding from the Alzheimer Society Program

Funding
Bilingualism
supportive hand to aged person
Image by Freepik
The Alzheimer Society Program has granted Shanna Koussaie, Psychology Professor at uOttawa’s Faculty of Social Sciences, the "New Investigator Grant” of a total value of $200,000 over a period of 4 years, for her new project entitled “Resting-state measures of the impact of language experience on cognitive reserve in aging and cognitive impairment”

Professor Koussaie believes that cognitive decline and aging impact how brain networks communicate, and that some lifestyle factors such as education and language experiences among others, play an important role in supporting and delaying cognitive aging.  

In her project, Professor Koussaie explores how bilingualism, in particular, promotes a healthy cognitive aging. The “New Investigator Grant” will allow her to analyze the impact of various language experiences on brain network activity.  Through her research project, Professor Koussaie expects to find positive correlations between bilingualism and brain-network functions that support cognition.  

Professor Koussaie is assistant professor of Psychology: her work focuses on the brain structure and the impact that languages have on intellectual functions.