Kristine Beate Walhovd, Ph.D.

Kristine Beate Walhovd is a professor of neuropsychology at the University of Oslo, Norway, and section leader for the Center for Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition (LCBC). Her current research is targeted at understanding the mechanisms underlying different types of change in brain and cognition, and whether and how we ourselves can initiate, enhance or slow them. Throughout life, humans’ mental capacities and brains are under continuous alteration: Some changes are part of positive development, others are debilitating.

Together with colleagues, Walhovd is trying to uncover markers and mechanisms underlying changes in brain and cognitive behavior throughout the lifespan. In this effort, she and her team are studying persons ranging in age from 0 to 100 yrs. She is very interested in understanding normal cognition and brain-behavior relationships throughout the human lifespan, and they conduct longitudinal lifespan observational studies on this. She is also leading a series of cognitive intervention studies, including a study of navigation with locations in virtual reality. She is also involved in patient studies, for instance on subjective and objective memory complaints, Alzheimer’s disease and drug exposure in utero. Main research methods include, among others, experimental and standardized neuropsychological tests, MRI, PET and EEG/ERP (Event-Related-Potentials).