2019-2020

Kyle Kainec, recipient of a $300 Spring Travel Award, is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience and Behavior Program who graduated from The Ohio State University. Working with Dr. Rebecca Spencer he utilizes fMRI, DTI, and high-density EEG, in order to investigate age-related changes in procedural learning consolidation following sleep. In addition he is exploring targeted memory reactivation, in which learned sensory cues are used to strengthen memories in the sleeping brain, to explore how memory reactivation during sleep affects related memory traces.

2018-2019

Kyle Kainec was selected to be one of six graduate scholars to participate in the 2018 Graduate Student Grant Writing Program and will receive mentoring and support from CRF faculty, staff and peers throughout the grant development process, including: development, refinement and communication of research ideas, approach, and methodology. Kyle Kainec is a graduate student studying under Dr. Rebecca Spencer in the Cognition and Action Lab. His interests are in using fMRI and EEG to investigate the effects of sleep on procedural memory consolidation, and how this process changes across normal healthy aging. In the future, he hopes to investigate the effects of sleep on semantic memory consolidation, and how methods like targeted memory reactivation can influence sleep dependent memory consolidation.