About

Roberto Cabeza is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, holding appointments since 2007. His laboratory investigates the neural correlates of memory and cognition in both young and older adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). His research focuses on distinguishing the neural processes involved in various episodic memory functions, such as encoding versus retrieval, item versus source memory, recall versus recognition, true versus false memory, and emotional versus nonemotional memory. He is particularly interested in the roles of the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe subregions and their interactions in these processes. Additionally, Cabeza explores the similarities and differences between the neural bases of episodic memory and other cognitive functions, including working, semantic, implicit, and procedural memory, as well as attention and perception. His work aims to understand how brain regions are shared across different cognitive functions. A significant aspect of his research involves examining the effects of healthy and pathological aging on memory and cognition, linking age-related changes in specific brain regions to different memory processes and identifying common age-related activity changes across various functions, such as increased bilaterality associated with functional compensation.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience
• Artificial Intelligence
• Political Science
• Linguistics
• Gerontology
• Medicine
• Cognitive science

Selected publications

• Apolipoprotein E Mimetic Peptide CN-105 and Postoperative Delirium in Older Patients

  JAMA Network Open · 2026-04-03

  articleOpen access

  Importance: The apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene ε4 allele leads to increased Alzheimer disease risk and neuroinflammation and is also believed to play a role in postoperative delirium. However, the safety and feasibility of modulating apoE protein signaling to reduce postoperative neuroinflammation and delirium in older adults are unclear. Objective: To assess the safety and feasibility of the apoE mimetic peptide CN-105 for reducing delirium incidence and severity and neuroinflammation after noncardiac or nonintracranial surgery in older adults. Design, Setting, and Participants: This triple-blind, escalating dose, phase 2 randomized clinical trial enrolled patients from April 17, 2019, to December 28, 2022, at a tertiary academic medical center. Included patients were 60 years or older and scheduled for a noncardiac or nonintracranial surgery. Exclusion criteria were incarceration, planned chemotherapy within 6 weeks after surgery, or inability to undergo lumbar punctures. Data analyses were based on a modified intention-to-treat approach and were performed from August 14, 2023, to August 22, 2025. Interventions: Patients were randomly assigned 3:1 to the CN-105 group or placebo group. The CN-105 group received intravenous CN-105 doses of 0.1, 0.5, or 1 mg/kg starting within 1 hour before surgery and administered every 6 hours afterward until hospital discharge or 13 doses were received. Patients in the placebo group followed the same administration schedule. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was safety-the incidence and number of postoperative adverse events (AEs). Secondary outcomes included feasibility (rate of drug doses administered within 90 minutes of schedule), postoperative delirium incidence and severity, and postoperative changes in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cytokine levels (interleukin [IL] 6, granulocyte-colony stimulating factor [G-CSF], monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 [MCP-1], and IL-8). Results: Among 203 enrolled patients, 186 (mean [SD] age, 68.7 [5.2] years; 119 males [64.0%]) were randomized (137 to the CN-105 group, 49 to the placebo group) and underwent surgery. The rates of grade 2 or higher AEs among patients in the CN-105 and placebo groups were 76.6% and 87.8% (relative risk [RR], 0.87; 95% CI, 0.76-1.00; P = .10). The CN-105 vs placebo group had fewer grade 2 or higher AEs per patient (median [IQR], 1 [1-3] vs 2 [1-5]; P = .03). The percentage of CN-105 doses administered within the time window was 94.6% (860 of 909; 95% CI, 92.9%-96.0%) in the CN-105 group and 93.8% (346 of 369; 95% CI, 90.8%-96.0%) in the placebo group. Among patients in the CN-105 vs placebo group, the postoperative delirium incidence was 19.3% vs 26.5% (odds ratio [OR], 0.66; 95% CI, 0.31-1.42; P = .29); the median (IQR) postoperative delirium severity scores were 1 (1-2) vs 2 (1-2) (P = .19); and the median difference in preoperative to 24-hour postoperative CSF cytokine-level changes were as follows: -0.39 pg/mL (95% CI, -0.93 to 0.14 pg/mL, P = .12) for IL-6, -0.84 pg/mL (95% CI, -3.06 to 1.40 pg/mL; P = .18) for G-CSF,-23.32 pg/mL (95% CI, -94.36 to 44.93 pg/mL; P = .57) for IL-8, and -2.36 pg/mL (95% CI, -58.57 to 58.62 pg/mL; P = .50) for MCP-1. Conclusions and Relevance: In this phase 2 randomized clinical trial of older surgical patients, CN-105 (vs placebo) administration was feasible and did not increase AEs. A phase 3 trial is warranted to further evaluate the efficacy of CN-105 for reducing postoperative AEs and to more precisely determine its effects on postoperative delirium incidence and severity. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03802396.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of episodic future thinking on time discounting across adulthood

  2026-01-30

  articleOpen access

  Today’s older adults are living longer, and the tendency to devalue future outcomes (time discounting) negatively affects financial choices throughout these longer lifespans. Cueing episodic future thinking (EFT) by tagging inter-temporal choice trials with hypothetical future events reliably increases future-oriented choices in younger adults, but its effects in older adults are unclear. In a sample of 100 adults across the lifespan, we found that EFT-cueing trials led to more future-oriented choices in younger adults, consistent with the extant literature, no choice differences in middle-aged adults, and fewer future-oriented choices in older adults. These findings suggest that EFT-cueing may not be an effective strategy to promote savings for all ages. Our design used common events for all subjects which allowed us to examine the relationship between events, finding that across age, cueing with rare, positive, and intense events led to more present-oriented choices, but may have limited our power compared to personally-relevant events.

  PublisherDOI

• Effects of episodic future thinking on time discounting across adulthood

  PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2026-01-29

  preprintOpen access

  Today’s older adults are living longer, and the tendency to devalue future outcomes (time discounting) negatively affects financial choices throughout these longer lifespans. Cueing episodic future thinking (EFT) by tagging inter-temporal choice trials with hypothetical future events reliably increases future-oriented choices in younger adults, but its effects in older adults are unclear. In a sample of 100 adults across the lifespan, we found that EFT-cueing trials led to more future-oriented choices in younger adults, consistent with the extant literature, no choice differences in middle-aged adults, and fewer future-oriented choices in older adults. These findings suggest that EFT-cueing may not be an effective strategy to promote savings for all ages. Our design used common events for all subjects which allowed us to examine the relationship between events, finding that across age, cueing with rare, positive, and intense events led to more present-oriented choices, but may have limited our power compared to personally-relevant events.

  Publisher

• Effects of Memory on Consumer Choice Across Adulthood

  PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2026-02-10

  preprintOpen access

  Consumers often rely on memory when making purchasing decisions, especially in e-commerce contexts when options are not simultaneously compared. This study examines how memory demands influence consumer decision quality across adulthood. In a task designed to mimic online shopping, 100 adults aged 25–80 chose products based on hypothetical consumer ratings that were compared either simultaneously with all rating information available (simultaneous trials) or after a delay which required recalling product ratings from memory (memory trials). Decision accuracy was lower on memory trials, and this memory-related cost was more pronounced with age. Older adults performed comparably to younger adults on simultaneous trials, so there was not an overall effect of age on decision quality. Unexpectedly, a subset of older adults spontaneously adopted a simplifying “summation” strategy, combining multiple attributes into a single composite value, reducing memory load. While this strategy defied task instructions, it may reflect the tendency for some older adults to adaptively compensate in real-world consumer contexts. These findings highlight how age-related memory abilities and strategic adaptation jointly shape consumer decision quality in memory-dependent contexts.

  Publisher

• Effects of Memory on Consumer Choice Across Adulthood

  2026-02-10

  articleOpen access

  Consumers often rely on memory when making purchasing decisions, especially in e-commerce contexts when options are not simultaneously compared. This study examines how memory demands influence consumer decision quality across adulthood. In a task designed to mimic online shopping, 100 adults aged 25–80 chose products based on hypothetical consumer ratings that were compared either simultaneously with all rating information available (simultaneous trials) or after a delay which required recalling product ratings from memory (memory trials). Decision accuracy was lower on memory trials, and this memory-related cost was more pronounced with age. Older adults performed comparably to younger adults on simultaneous trials, so there was not an overall effect of age on decision quality. Unexpectedly, a subset of older adults spontaneously adopted a simplifying “summation” strategy, combining multiple attributes into a single composite value, reducing memory load. While this strategy defied task instructions, it may reflect the tendency for some older adults to adaptively compensate in real-world consumer contexts. These findings highlight how age-related memory abilities and strategic adaptation jointly shape consumer decision quality in memory-dependent contexts.

  PublisherDOI

• The neural basis of the insight memory advantage

  Trends in Cognitive Sciences · 2025-01-24 · 11 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Creative problem solving and memory are inherently intertwined: memory accesses existing knowledge while creativity enhances it.Recent studies show that insights often accompanying creative solutions enhance long-term memory.This insight memory advantage (IMA) is explained by the 'insight as prediction error (PE)' hypothesis which states that insights arise from PEs updating predictive solution models and thereby enhancing memory.Neurally, the hippocampus initially detects PEs and then, together with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), integrates and updates these expectations facilitating efficient memory encoding and retrieval.Dopamine (DA) mediates reward PEs and long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus, while noradrenaline (NE) enhances arousal and attention impacting the amygdala, the salience network, and hippocampal plasticity.These neurobiological mechanisms likely underpin IMA and have significant implications for educational practices and problem-solving strategies. Insight and the memory advantageFew stories in science illustrate creative problem-solving as well as Archimedes' discovery of the buoyancy principle.According to historical accounts, Archimedes was tasked with measuring the gold content of a crown, and he found the solution while taking a bath, noticing the water displaced.Drawing on his knowledge of measurement and geometry, he suddenly realized how to measure irregularly shaped objects by the water they displaced and shouted Eureka!('I have it!').This feeling of joy and surprise, known as the Eureka or Aha! moment, is a defining property of insight (see Glossary).Archimedes' discovery not only solved the problem but also introduced the principle of buoyancy, thus enhancing his prior knowledge.We address the question of how learning newly discovered information is improved when the discovery elicits insight, specifically in a strong Aha! moment.Behavioral evidence shows that problems and solutions that are accompanied by insight are better remembered later.This IMA has been of particular interest in recent years [1][2][3][4][5].Unlike other forms of learning that require multiple repetitions [6], insight can significantly enhance long-term memory, often after a single exposure.Hence, insights can not only activate and recombine relevant memories but can also enhance them.This phenomenon holds educational implications as insight-driven learning experiences can be particularly effective in knowledge retention [6][7][8].What is it about insight that explains its impact on memory?In general, memory is enhanced for behaviorally significant events that are salient, novel, surprising, or associated with reward [9].When a person has an insight, this is a unique situation where these memory-enhancing properties of behaviorally significant events come together.For this reason, the Aha! experience has recently been conceptualized as the consequence of a set of PEs [10-13] that capture saliency, novelty, surprise, and reward through mismatches between expectations and outcomes.In a

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Insight predicts subsequent memory via cortical representational change and hippocampal activity

  Nature Communications · 2025-05-09 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The neural mechanisms driving creative problem-solving, including representational change and its relation to memory, still remain largely unknown. We focus on the creative process of insight, wherein rapid knowledge reorganization and integration-termed representational change-yield solutions that evoke suddenness, certainty, positive emotion, and enduring memory. We posit that this process is associated with stronger shifts in activation patterns within brain regions housing solution-relevant information, including the visual cortex for visual problems, alongside regions linked to feelings of emotion, suddenness and subsequent memory. To test this, we collect participants' brain activity while they solve visual insight problems in the MRI. Our findings substantiate these hypotheses, revealing stronger representational changes in visual cortex, coupled with activations in the amygdala and hippocampus-forming an interconnected network. Importantly, representational change and hippocampal effects are positively associated with subsequent memory. This study provides evidence of an integrated insight mechanism influencing memory.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Semantic Dimensions Support the Cortical Representation of Object Memorability

  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · 2025-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Recent work in vision sciences contends that objects carry an intrinsic property called memorability that describes the likelihood that an object can be successfully encoded and later retrieved from memory. It has been shown that object memorability is supported by semantic information, but the neural correlates of this relationship are largely unexplored. The present study explores these premises and asks whether neural correlates of object memorability can be accounted for by semantic dimensions. We combine three data sets: (1) feature norms for a database of ∼1000 natural object images, (2) normative conceptual and perceptual memory data for those objects, and (3) neuroimaging data from an fMRI study collected using a subset (n = 360) of those objects. We found that object-wise memorability elicits consistent brain activation across participants in key mnemonic regions, including the hippocampus and rhinal cortex, and that the variance in this neural activity is mediated by the semantic factors describing these images. We propose that the features of memorable images may be facilitating memory formation by more deeply engaging encoding processes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What Makes Memories Vivid?

  2025-05-08

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Some memories are vivid and detailed, while others are vague and indistinct. Although a common experience, the cognitive mechanisms underlying these differences remain poorly understood. A common explanation for what makes mental representations vivid is their shared properties with visual perception. However, recent research has shown that semantic properties of stimuli strongly influence their representations. To determine the extent to which visual and/or semantic properties influence memory vividness, we first examined whether individual stimuli reliably elicit similar subjective feelings of vividness across different subjects. Next, we explored how vividness relates to visual (i.e., color and brightness) and semantic (i.e., taxonomic category) properties of naturalistic images (Experiment 1). We found that vividness ratings were consistent across subjects; crucially, this consistency depended not only on the visual properties of the stimuli but also on their semantic properties. We then employed Deep Neural Networks to select stimuli based on their visual or semantic features (Experiment 2). Our results showed that stimuli selected for their semantic—but not those selected purely for their visual—properties reliably elicited vivid memories. Finally, we demonstrated that even in a purely visual recall test (Experiment 3), where both encoding and retrieval operations focused exclusively on the visual properties of a mnemonic cue, memory vividness still depended on the integration of visual and semantic stimuli representations. Together, our findings demonstrate, at multiple levels of inference, that although vividness is often compared to perception, this subjective quality of memory is shaped by our knowledge of the world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mapping concept and relational semantic representation in the brain using large language models

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-06-13

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract How the brain organizes semantic information is one of the most challenging and expansive questions in cognitive neuroscience. To shed light on this issue, prior studies have attempted to decode how the brain represents concepts. We instead examined how relational information is encoded, which we pursued by submitting texts to a contemporary large language model and extracting relational embeddings from the model. Using behavioral data (N = 636), we found these embeddings capture independent information about scenes and objects, along with relational information on their semantic links. Turning to fMRI data (N = 60), we leveraged these embeddings for representational similarity analysis: The occipitotemporal cortex represents concepts in isolation, whereas the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia principally encode relational information. Relational coding within prefrontal and striatal areas also tracks how participants reason about scenes and objects. Altogether, this research maps how information progresses from concept-level to integrative forms and how this translates into behavior.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01AG034580

  NIH · $1.5M · 2015

• NIH Grant R01AG019731

  NIH · $4.6M · 2018

• NIH Grant R01AG023770

  NIH · $1.5M · 2010

• NIH Grant U01AG050618

  NIH · $2.3M · 2021

• NIH Grant R56AG023770

  NIH · $346k · 2012

Frequent coauthors

• Simon W. Davis

  Duke University

  192 shared

• Sarah H. Lisanby

  160 shared

• Angel V. Peterchev

  Duke University

  149 shared

• Lysianne Beynel

  Duke University

  149 shared

• Susan Hilbig

  Duke University

  149 shared

• Bruce Luber

  National Institute of Mental Health

  146 shared

• Wesley Lim

  Texas A&M University

  134 shared

• Greg Appelbaum

  Duke University

  130 shared

Awards & honors

• Duke Science & Society Affiliate (2014 - Present)
• Duke Population Research Institute Research Scholar of DuPRI…
• Duke Institute for Brain Sciences Member (2008 - Present)
• Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Member (2001 - Present)
• NIH Effects of Healthy Aging and Mild Cognitive Impairment o…