Erika Nyhus

Erika Nyhus (MPsych; PhDCogSci’10), an assistant professor in neuroscience and psychology at Bowdoin College in Maine, is researching how different regions of the brain interact and communicate to create memories. She runs memory tests in her lab with student volunteers that measure the electrical activity in the subject’s brain with an EEG. Erika became interested in researching memory while at CU and saw how much memory interacted with other cognitive processes, including attention, cognitive control and emotion. She hopes to find better treatments for people with memory disorders by understanding how memory works, as well as ways to improve disordered memory systems. She is launching a study that looks at how lifestyle factors like meditation can affect attention, which plays a large role in memory.