Carol A. Barnes

Dr. Carol Barnes is a Regents' Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Neurology, Director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute and Research Scientist in the ARL Division of Neural Systems, Memory & Aging at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. She earned her B.A. in psychology from the University of California at Riverside, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She did postdoctoral training in neuropsychology and neurophysiology in the Department of Psychology at Dalhousie University, The Institute of Neurophysiology, University of Oslo, and in the Cerebral Functions Group at University College London.

Dr. Barnes is past president of the Society for Neuroscience and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. The central goal of Dr. Barnes' research and teaching program is the question of how the brain changes during the aging process and the functional consequences of these changes on information processing and memory in the elderly. Her research program involves studies of behavior and neurophysiology in young and old laboratory animals. This work provides a basis for understanding the basic mechanisms of normal aging in the brain and sets a background against which it is possible to assess the effects of pathological changes such as Alzheimer's disease. Some current work also includes an assessment of therapeutic agents that may be promising in the alleviation or delay of neural and cognitive changes that occur with age. Dr. Barnes has written over 170 articles in the area of memory changes during normal aging and their possible neurobiological correlates.