The Cognition and Older Adult Stress (COAST) study

Purpose and Goals

Ever wondered how life stressors impact your health? Are you noticing changes in your thinking? 

Life expectancy has risen significantly, with Canadians aged 65+ increasing 18.3% in the past 5 years (Franks et al., 2021). With this change, the prevalence of age-related conditions like dementia is also rising (Government of Canada, 2025; GBD Dementia Forecasting Collaborators, 2022). It is increasingly important to examine factors that impact cognitive aging. 

Stress exposure has been shown to negatively affect brain structure and function, and subsequent cognitive outcomes, accelerating the biological aging process.  

 Researchers in the BRAIN Lab at the University of Victoria are investigating the cumulative effects of stress on cognition and brain function in older adults. 

This study aims to better understand how the stress people experience throughout their lives may affect how their brain works and how well they think as they get older. 

Specific Aims:  

Aim 1: To see if people who have gone through more stress over their lifetime perform worse on thinking tasks that require planning, memory, focus, and self-control. 

Aim 2: To find out whether people with more lifetime stress show signs of working harder in certain parts of their brain—especially the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in decision-making—when completing thinking tasks. 

Aim 3: To examine whether the amount of stress someone has experienced changes the way brain activity is linked to their thinking abilities. In other words, we want to see if stress makes it more likely that the brain must work harder just to keep up during everyday tasks. 

What is Involved?

This study will involve:
i. a brief pre-screening phone call to determine if you are eligible for the study.

ii. If eligible, you will complete an online survey (~0.5 hour) at home.  

iii. Within one week of survey completion, you will attend an in-person cognitive assessment and neuroimaging monitoring session (~1.5 hour) at the University of Victoria. You will also complete a stress questionnaire in-person. You will receive a $40.00 gift card (via EverythingCard) for your participation in all parts of the study.  

Eligibility to Participate

  • 65 years or older living in the greater Victoria area (and can come to UVic for in-person testing) 
  • Right-handed 
  • Can communicate in English 
  • No history of severe psychiatric (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) or neurological disorders (e.g., Multiple Sclerosis, severe head injury, dementia) 
  • No sensory or motor difficulties that could impact testing 

If you are eligible (as determined by our phone screening call) and choose to participate, you will be provided with a detailed consent form outlining the study procedures, potential risks, and your rights as a participant prior to enrollment.  

Please note that participation involves consenting to have your anonymized data stored indefinitely, used in future ethically approved research, and shared in an open-access database. If you do not agree with these terms, you may choose not to participate. 

 

Contact

Please fill out the form below or email us at the COAST_study@uvic.ca if you are interested in participating.

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