# Memory guided planning across the lifespan

> **NIH AG R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2026 · $736,956

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Throughout life, we routinely make decisions that impact our physical and financial health (e.g., which life
insurance plan to choose or whether to get a medical treatment). Our ability to make appropriate future
decisions depend, at least in part, on accurate memory for past choices, including memory for the context in
which those decisions were made. Older adults are impaired at these flexible, context-specific decisions. To
what extent is this related to their memory? Memory precision declines with age; this is true both of memory for
specific details of individual items (item memory) as well as memory for which items occur when and where
(context memory), and also how individual items and concepts are related to one another (statistical learning).
These declines are significantly more pronounced in individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and
related dementias. This R01 proposal from two New Investigators aims to understand how memory failures
lead to decision failures. We will examine this question using a synergistic computational and neurobiological
approach. Specifically, we will measure the influence of different kinds of memories – item, context, statistical
learning - on choices, using novel computational frameworks we have developed, and variants of
well-validated tasks tuned to test these formal hypotheses. We will relate this framework to measures in
behavior, functional neuroimaging, and advanced diffusion imaging methods which we have also recently
developed. Although numerous studies have attributed choice performance to the striatum, fewer have
assessed the specific contributions of the medial temporal memory circuit. To address these limitations,
cognitively normal older adults will complete our decision tasks while undergoing functional and diffusion
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess contributions of the striatal and medial temporal circuits.
Extending our recent work, we will test for unique contributions of recent

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11332980
- **Project number:** 5R01AG088306-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Ilana Jacqueline Bennett; Aaron Michael Bornstein
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AG
- **Fiscal year:** 2026
- **Award amount:** $736,956
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2025-05-15T00:00:00 → 2030-04-30T00:00:00

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11332980

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11332980, Memory guided planning across the lifespan (5R01AG088306-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11332980. Licensed CC0.

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