About

Monica Fabiani is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, with additional affiliations in the Neuroscience Program and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Her research interests are centered on the cognitive neuroscience of human memory and aging, as well as the development of tools for the non-invasive mapping of human brain function. Her work involves integrating data from behavioral responses, neuropsychological tests, and various brain imaging techniques, including event-related brain potentials (ERPs), structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and optical imaging methods such as event-related optical signals (EROS). Professor Fabiani's research encompasses several interconnected areas, including the cerebrovascular contributions to structural, functional, and cognitive aging, utilizing a newly developed optical method called pulse-DOT to assess cerebrovascular status. She investigates neurophysiological and structural bases of cognitive control, attention, and working memory in normal aging, with a focus on individual differences, and extends this research to examine the effects of alcohol on executive function. Additionally, she is involved in developing and integrating new non-invasive optical brain imaging methods with existing techniques, aiming to enhance understanding of neurovascular coupling and brain aging processes. Her contributions include advancing non-invasive imaging technologies and applying them to aging research, with a particular emphasis on understanding sensory and working memory, neurovascular health, and individual differences among different age groups.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive science
• Data science
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Ultrafast <scp>fMRI</scp> Detects Age‐Related Changes in Harmonics of Cardiac Pulsations in the Brain at 7 T

  Magnetic Resonance in Medicine · 2026-05-10

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Purpose Aging impacts pulsatility of blood vessels in the brain, reflecting vascular health. Resolving characteristics of cardiac pulsatility requires faster acquisitions than traditional fMRI. An ultrafast fMRI method was developed and applied to sample several harmonics of cardiac pulsations at 7 T. Methods Leveraging partial separability, an ultrafast fMRI method (TR = 65 ms) was applied at 7 T with full brain coverage at 2 mm isotropic resolution and concurrent pulse plethysmographic (PPG) recordings in 28 healthy adults, 22 of whom had acceptable PPG and MRI data. The reliability of the pulsation was assessed for each voxel through even/odd splitting of heartbeats. The PPG was used to retrospectively temporally align signals across heartbeats, and analysis was performed on amplitudes of harmonic frequencies to explore age‐ and sex‐related differences. Reliable measures of four harmonics of the heartbeat were characterized along with the ratios of the harmonics to the primary harmonic. Results High reliability of the pulsation was found near major arteries, tested by Spearman correlation between the first harmonic and a vessel atlas ( p &lt; 0.0001). Consistent with previous literature, older adults exhibited higher harmonic amplitudes with the strongest result in the second harmonic in gray matter with FDR‐corrected q = 0.020. In addition, males had a higher third‐to‐first harmonic ratio. Conclusion Ultrafast fMRI can reliably resolve several harmonics of cardiac pulsations in the brain in and around blood vessels. This may provide a way to characterize vascular health throughout the brain during aging.

  PublisherDOI

• The Mediterranean Diet is Associated with Higher Arterial Elasticity over Prefrontal Cortex in Older Adults

  medRxiv · 2026-04-22

  articleOpen access

  Abstract INTRODUCTION Healthful dietary patterns may attenuate dementia risk by preserving cerebrovascular health. Prior work has focused on systemic arterial stiffness, but cerebrovascular measures may be more sensitive to neuroprotective effects of diet. We examined associations between Mediterranean diet adherence, prefrontal cortex (PFC) arterial elasticity, and cognition in older adults. METHODS Participants were 198 older adults (58% female; mean age 65.6 years) from the Newcastle ACTIVate cohort. Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) scores were derived from the Australian Eating Survey food frequency questionnaire. Pulse Relaxation Function (PReFx), an index of PFC arterial elasticity, was measured using pulse Diffuse Optical Tomography. Cognition was assessed with CANTAB and a cued task-switching paradigm. RESULTS Higher MedDiet was associated with higher PFC arterial elasticity. MedDiet was not associated with cognition, and PReFx did not mediate diet-cognition associations. DISCUSSION Greater Mediterranean diet alignment was cross-sectionally associated with PFC arterial elasticity, suggesting a pathway through which diet may influence brain health in ageing.

  PublisherDOI

• How to Improve the Reliability of Aperiodic Parameter Estimates in M/ <scp>EEG</scp> : A Method Comparison

  Psychophysiology · 2026-03-01

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Interest in broadband aperiodic brain activity (1/f phenomenon) has increased exponentially over recent years, partly fueled by the development of tools to parameterize it (i.e., estimate its offset/intercept and exponent/slope) using the M/EEG power spectrum. Broadband aperiodic activity needs to be separated from narrowband periodic activity before its parameters are computed. A popular method, the fooof toolbox, is based on the data-driven detection of narrowband-periodic peaks, whose maximum number is set by the user. While increasing analytic flexibility, variability in the number of detected peaks may increase sensitivity to noise and reduce the reliability of aperiodic parameter estimates and the power of analytic pipelines. Here, we present an investigation of the effects of analytic choices (e.g., number of peaks, spectral estimation method) on metrics indicating the adequacy of spectral parametrization. These include the internal consistency (odd-even reliability) of aperiodic estimates, the number of outliers generated, and their ability to detect effects. Across two different data sets (resting state and task-based), we found a decrease in the reliability of intercept and slope estimates as more peaks were allowed to be extracted. To ameliorate this problem, we propose a theory-driven modification of fooof labeled censored regression, whereby a theory-driven range of frequencies expected to contain periodic activity is removed from all spectra, and the remaining power values are regressed on the remaining frequencies to obtain parameter estimates. This method shows more reliable and robust estimates compared to fooof, while avoiding overfitting.

  PublisherDOI

• Effects of Aging, Estimated Fitness, and Cerebrovascular Status on White Matter Microstructural Health

  Human Brain Mapping · 2025-03-21 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  White matter (WM) microstructural health declines with increasing age, with evidence suggesting that improved cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) may mitigate this decline. Specifically, higher fit older adults tend to show preserved WM microstructural integrity compared to their lower fit counterparts. However, the extent to which fitness and aging independently impact WM integrity across the adult lifespan is still an open question, as is the extent to which cerebrovascular health mediates these relationships. In a large sample (N = 125, aged 25-72), we assessed the impact of age and estimated cardiorespiratory fitness on fractional anisotropy (FA, derived using diffusion weighted imaging, dwMRI) and probed the mediating role of cerebrovascular health (derived using diffuse optical tomography of the cerebral arterial pulse, pulse-DOT) in these relationships. After orthogonalizing age and estimated fitness and computing a PCA on whole brain WM regions, we found several WM regions impacted by age that were independent from the regions impacted by estimated fitness (hindbrain areas, including brainstem and cerebellar tracts), whereas other areas showed interactive effects of age and estimated fitness (midline areas, including fornix and corpus callosum). Critically, cerebrovascular health mediated both relationships suggesting that vascular health plays a linking role between age, fitness, and brain health. Secondarily, we assessed potential sex differences in these relationships and found that, although females and males generally showed the same age-related FA declines, males exhibited somewhat steeper declines than females. Together, these results suggest that age and fitness impact specific WM regions and highlight the mediating role of cerebrovascular health in maintaining WM health across adulthood.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiometabolic health are associated with distinct cognitive domains in cognitively-healthy older adults

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-04-08

  preprintOpen access

  ABSTRACT Background Aging is associated with progressive cognitive decline, as well as increased prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors and reduced cardiorespiratory fitness. In fact, reduced cardiometabolic health and cardiorespiratory fitness are both associated with a decline in cognitive functioning. This study examines the common and distinct contributions of these cardiovascular health factors on cognitive variability across different domains in cognitively healthy older adults. Methods and Results We apply structural equation modelling (SEM) to model cross-sectional relationships between cardiometabolic health, cardiorespiratory fitness and performance across multiple cognitive domains in an age-restricted sample of healthy older adults from the ACTIVate Study (n=345; 60-70 yrs). Participants completed a series of cognitive and clinical assessments (including brachial blood pressure, heart rate, blood-based metabolic markers). We designed a cognitive model (Model 1) with four latent factors that are differentially impacted by aging (Processing Speed, Executive Function, Verbal Memory and Crystallized Ability) and used it to test effects on cognition of two theory-driven dimensions of cardiovascular health: Cardiorespiratory Fitness (Model 2) and Cardiometabolic Health (Model 3). Model 4 included both predictors and examined their joint and distinct effects on these cognitive domains. When controlling for their joint variance, Cardiometabolic Health and Cardiorespiratory Fitness showed evidence consistent with a double dissociation on cognitive domains. Specifically, cardiorespiratory fitness significantly predicted processing speed ( r =0.28, p &lt;0.05) and executive function ( r =0.66, p &lt;0.05), but not verbal memory and crystallized ability. In contrast, cardiometabolic health predicted crystallized ability ( r =0.31, p &lt;0.05) and verbal memory ( r =0.28, p &lt;0.05), but not executive function and processing speed. Conclusions This study shows the first evidence that cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiometabolic health are associated with distinct cognitive domains in a large cross-sectional, age-restricted and high functioning cohort. These findings emphasize the importance of healthy aging approaches that target both health literacy and lifestyle behaviors to promote functional capacity across the lifespan.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How to Improve the Reliability of Aperiodic Parameter Estimates in M/EEG: A Method Comparison

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-11-11 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract Interest in broadband aperiodic brain activity (1/ f phenomenon) has increased exponentially over recent years, partly fueled by the development of tools to parameterize it (i.e., estimate its offset/intercept and exponent/slope) using the M/EEG power spectrum. Broadband aperiodic activity needs to be separated from narrowband periodic activity before its parameters are computed. A popular method, the fooof toolbox (Donoghue et al., 2020), is based on the data-driven detection of narrowband-periodic peaks, whose maximum number is set by the user. While increasing analytic flexibility, variability in the number of detected peaks may increase sensitivity to noise and reduce the reliability of aperiodic parameter estimates and the power of analytic pipelines. Here, we present an investigation of the effects of analytic choices (e.g., number of peaks, spectral estimation method) on metrics indicating the adequacy of spectral parametrization. These include the internal consistency (odd-even reliability) of aperiodic estimates, the number of outliers generated, and their ability to detect effects. Across two different data sets (resting state and task-based) we found a decrease in the reliability of intercept and slope estimates as more peaks were allowed to be extracted. To ameliorate this problem, we propose a theory-driven modification of fooof labelled censored regression , whereby a theory-driven range of frequencies expected to contain periodic activity is removed from all spectra, and the remaining power values are regressed on the remaining frequencies to obtain parameter estimates. This method shows more reliable and robust estimates compared to fooof , while avoiding overfitting.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ultrafast fMRI detects age-related changes in harmonics of cardiac pulsations in the brain at 7 T

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-10-29

  preprintOpen access

  PURPOSE: Aging impacts pulsatility of blood vessels in the brain, reflecting vascular health. Resolving characteristics of cardiac pulsatility requires faster acquisitions than traditional fMRI. An ultrafast fMRI method was developed and applied to sample several harmonics of cardiac pulsations at 7 T. METHODS: Leveraging partial separability, an ultrafast fMRI method (TR = 65 ms) was applied at 7 T with full brain coverage at 2 mm isotropic resolution and concurrent pulse plethysmographic (PPG) recordings in 28 healthy adults, 22 of whom had acceptable PPG and MRI data. The reliability of the pulsation was assessed for each voxel through even/odd splitting of heartbeats. The PPG was used to retrospectively temporally align signals across heartbeats, and analysis was performed on amplitudes of harmonic frequencies to explore age- and sex-related differences. Reliable measures of four harmonics of the heartbeat were characterized along with the ratios of the harmonics to the primary harmonic. RESULTS: High reliability of the pulsation was found near major arteries, tested by Spearman correlation between the first harmonic and a vessel atlas (p < 0.0001). Consistent with previous literature, older adults exhibited higher harmonic amplitudes with the strongest result in the second harmonic in gray matter with FDR-corrected q = 0.020. In addition, males had a higher third-to-first harmonic ratio. CONCLUSION: Ultrafast fMRI can reliably resolve several harmonics of cardiac pulsations in the brain in and around blood vessels. This may provide a way to characterize vascular health throughout the brain during aging.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Changes in aperiodic (1/ <i>f</i> slope) activity during a picture-word interference task: Effects of congruency and sequence manipulations

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-12-22 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Aperiodic neural activity (1/ f EEG) has been proposed to reflect the balance between excitatory and inhibitory (E:I) inputs, with steeper spectral slopes reflecting increased inhibition and flatter slopes indicating excitation. This activity also reflects the temporal coordination of neural firing, offering insights into fundamental brain dynamics. Recent studies have shown that the 1/ f slope is sensitive to stimulus onset, characterized by initial inhibitory shifts followed by excitatory rebounds, which may reflect cognitive control mechanisms involved in suppressing distractions and preparing goal-directed responses. However, previous works have relied on fixed temporal windows and insufficient control of ERP contamination, limiting our understanding of rapid control dynamics. Here we used newly developed time-resolved analyses to study 1/ f spectral slope modulation during a Picture-Word Interference task, focusing on two canonical cognitive control markers: the Congruency Effect (CE) and Congruency Sequence Effect (CSE). Forty-nine participants categorized pictures while ignoring congruent or incongruent words. Behaviorally, we replicated robust CE and CSE patterns. Spectral slope analyses showed that incongruent trials elicited steeper slopes — consistent with increased inhibition — particularly in frontal and central regions, reflecting conflict-related control engagement. Moreover, CSE analyses revealed dynamic slope modulations across frontal, central, and occipital components over time, suggesting control adjustments influenced by previous trial congruency. These results provide the first fine-grained evidence that aperiodic 1/ f EEG activity can track both immediate conflict resolution and cognitive adjustments, offering a temporally sensitive neural marker of cognitive control through modulation of E:I balance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Region-specific associations between cerebral arterial elasticity and grey matter volume: Evidence for lateral prefrontal vulnerability

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-12-08

  articleOpen access

  Background: Ageing is associated with increased cardiovascular health risks and disproportionate atrophy in frontotemporal brain. Regional cerebral arterial elasticity correlates with regional grey matter volume, with stronger associations frontally and in older adults. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is linked to preserved brain structure and greater arterial elasticity, while sex differences exist in the timing of vascular versus structural changes. This study examines whether regional cerebral arterial elasticity in frontotemporal cortex mediates the association between age and corresponding grey matter volume decline, and whether sex and/or CRF moderate this relationship. Methods: We analysed data from 162 healthy adults (60-70 years) with structural MRI and diffuse optical tomography of the cerebral arterial pulse (Pulse-DOT) from the ACTIVate cohort. CRF was estimated from demographic and physiological measures. Pulse Relaxation Function (PReFx), an optical index of regional arterial elasticity, was measured across 28 frontal, temporal, and parietal regions of interest (ROI). Grey matter (GM) volume was quantified for corresponding ROIs. Mediation and moderated mediation models tested whether PReFx mediated the relationship between age and GM volume at bilateral frontal and temporal ROIs, and whether biological sex or CRF moderated this relationship. Results: Regional bivariate correlations identified associations between age, PReFx and GM volume across multiple ROIs, which PReFx and GM volume being associated primarily in left frontal and temporal areas. PReFx partially mediated the effect of age on GM volume in a left mid-inferior frontal ROI, accounting for approximately 16% of the total age effect and this relationship was only evident in females. Although higher CRF was associated with greater PReFx, it did not moderate the relationship between age, PReFx and GM volume. Conclusions: Consistent with cascade models of neurovascular aging, cerebral arterial stiffening was found to partially explain the effect of increasing age on frontal GM volume, even in this highly age-restricted and high functioning cohort. This effect was only significant over the left prefrontal cortex, consistent with greater vulnerability of frontal brain and associated cognitive functions. It was also exclusively present in females, who had better cardiovascular health, larger grey matter volume and greater arterial elasticity than males. These findings are consistent with pulse-DOT measures of cerebral arterial elasticity being more sensitive to subclinical brain structural variability.

  PublisherDOI

• Cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiometabolic health are associated with distinct cognitive domains in cognitively healthy older adults

  Scientific Reports · 2025-11-28 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Cardiometabolic risk and low cardiorespiratory fitness have been linked to age-related cognitive decline, but their relative contributions to different cognitive domains remain unclear. This study examined cross-sectional associations between cardiometabolic health, cardiorespiratory fitness, and cognition in cognitively healthy older adults (60-70 years). Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to estimate latent variables for cardiorespiratory fitness (derived from physical activity, resting heart rate and BMI), cardiometabolic health (derived from blood pressure, glucose, lipids and BMI), and four cognitive domains: processing speed, executive function, verbal memory, and crystallized ability. Better cardiorespiratory fitness was significantly associated with higher executive function and processing speed, but not with verbal memory or crystallized ability. In contrast, better cardiometabolic health was significantly associated with higher crystallized ability and verbal memory, but not with executive function or processing speed. These modest but reliable relationships remained significant when both health factors were included in the same model, suggesting a double dissociation between their cognitive correlates. This study provides the first evidence that cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiometabolic health are related to distinct aspects of cognition in later life, highlighting potential targets for lifestyle-based interventions to support cognitive health in older age.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R56MH097973

  NIH · $425k · 2015

• Role of arterial stiffness in the decline of cognitive control in aging

  NIH · $3.0M · 2019–2024

• NIH Grant RC1AG035927

  NIH · $775k · 2012

• Optical measures of cerebral arterial function as predictors of brain and cognitive aging

  NIH · $3.5M · 2018–2026

• NIH Grant R01AG021887

  NIH · $2.8M · 2009

Frequent coauthors

• Gabriele Gratton

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  200 shared

• Kathy A. Low

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  82 shared

• Edward L. Maclin

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  56 shared

• Benjamin Zimmerman

  National University of Natural Medicine

  35 shared

• Bradley P. Sutton

  31 shared

• Antonio Maria Chiarelli

  24 shared

• David Friedman

  University of British Columbia

  24 shared

• Kyle E. Mathewson

  University of Alberta

  23 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1990

• BS/Laurea, Psychology

  Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza Dipartimento di Psicologia

  1980