Deborah M. Little, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Rehabilitation and Anatomy and Cell Biology. She also serves as Director of Magnetic Resonance Research in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Little earned her Ph.D. from Brandeis University and completed postdoctoral training in the Center for MR Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on elucidating the neural structures and pathways that mediate adaptation to new environmental demands. Dr. Little's research is supported by the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago and by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Ongoing Research Projects:
Category Learning: Category learning is required for guiding everyday perception, action, and decision making. Category learning is rapid and can be carried out with apparent ease in healthy adults. We study one specific subtype of category learning, prototype-distortion learning. We use a combination of both behavioral and fMRI methods to investigate learning. Collaborators: Drs. Raymond Klein ( Dalhousie University ), Keith Thulborn (UIC), and Marilyn Kraus (UIC).
Aging: Differential declines in executive functions are a hallmark of normal aging. With normal aging decreases in the volume and density of both gray and white matter disproportionately affect the cortical regions that underlie executive functions. The overall objective of this line of work is to characterize the mechanisms that promote optimal executive function and conversely, suboptimal function, in the elderly. Collaborators: Drs. Pauline Maki (UIC), X. Joe Zhou (UIC), and David Nyenhuis (UIC).
Dementia: Differential diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) from other forms of dementia, particularly vascular dementia (VaD), the second most prevalent dementia, is clinically difficult. The overall goal of the project is determine whether a dissociation between the biological basis of executive function and short term memory can be used to differentiate VaD from AD. Collaborators: Drs. Laura Pedelty and David Nyenhuis.
Department of Neurology & Rehabilitation - Personal Webpage
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