Jessica Bernard
  • Professor, Ella McFadden Endowed Professorship in Liberal Arts, APS Fellow
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Research Areas
  • Cognition & Cognitive Neuroscience

Research Interests

Research Interests

Dr. Bernard’s work focuses on understanding how cognitive and motor behavior changes as we get older. She does so in those that are aging well (cognitively normal), and increasingly, she is also exploring what happens in the case of age-related neurodegenerative disease. She is particularly interested in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and subjective cognitive decline (SCD), both of which can be considered early, preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Notably, in those with MCI and SCD, not all individuals go on and progress to Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. Many individuals remain stable or even improve. Dr. Bernard is particularly interested in what differentiates these individuals, and in turn, how we can develop novel interventions to improve function and quality of life in advanced age. Across her research, she is particularly interested in the cerebellum. The cerebellum is located at the bottom and back of the brain, and is important for coordinating motor behavior as well as our thoughts. She is the director of the Lifespan Cognitive and Motor Neuroimaging Laboratory, where she and her lab team work to better characterize cerebellar changes over time with age, in conjunction with understanding how the cerebellum interacts with the rest of the brain. Dr. Bernard uses multimodal neuroimaging, behavioral measures, and non-invasive brain stimulation in her research. Further, Dr. Bernard has been increasingly focused on how the hormonal experiences of females (pregnancy, perimenopause) impact brain network organization and impact function. She incorporates measures of hormonal fluctuations in her research to investigate how hormonal changes impact the brain. In parallel to this work on aging and age-related disease, Dr. Bernard maintains collaborations with colleagues investigating cerebellar contributions to psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Affiliated Research Cluster

Neuroscience. Cerebellar structure and networks in humans; motor and cognitive behavior; aging; neuroimaging.

 

Office Hours: Mondays 10:30-11:30a in PSYC 209

 

Accepting Students for 2025-2026?: No

 

Memberships: Institute for Neuroscience

Selected Publications

  • Recent Publications

    •  *Magalhães, T.N.C., *Hicks, T.H. *Jackson, T.B., *Ballard, H.K., *Herrejon, I.A., Bernard, J.A. (In Press) Sex-steroid hormones relate to cerebellar structure and functional connectivity across adulthood. Human Brain Mapping. Preprint: 10.1101/2024.06.24.600454

    • Bernard, J.A., *Herrejon. I.A., #An, E., #Cina, Y., #Dabbiru, S., #Dempsey, J.R., #Marrie, E., #Medina, M., #Praytor, J. (2025). Altered cerebellar activation patterns in Alzheimer’s Disease: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. NeuroImage:Clinical, 46, 103770. 

    • *Maldonado, T., *Jackson, T.B., & Bernard, J.A. (2025). Time dependent effects of cerebellar tDCs on cerebello-cortical connectivity networks in young adults. Cerebellum, 24, 29.

    • *Hicks, T.H., *Magalhães, T.N.C., *Jackson, T.B., *Ballard, H.K., *Herrejon, I.A., Bernard, J.A. (2025). Functional and structural cerebellar-behavior relationships in aging. Brain Structure and Function, 230, 10.

    • *Sansare, A.A., *Magalhaes, T.N.C., Bernard, J.A. (2025). Relationships of functional connectivity of motor cortex, primary somatosensory cortex, and cerebellum to balance performance in middle-aged and older adults. Neurobiology of Aging, 147, 1-11.

    • Bernard, J.A. (2024). Cerebello-hippocampal interactions in the human brain: a new pathway for insights into aging. Cerebellum, 23, 2130-2141.

    • Arelo, A., Bares, M., Bernard, J.A., Bogoian, H.R., Bruchhage, M.M.K., Bryant, P., Carlson, E.S., Chan, C.C.H., Chen, L-K., Chung, C-P., Dotson, V.M., Filip, P., Guell, X., Habas, C., Jacobs, H.I.L., Kakei, S., Lee, T.M.C., Leggio, M., Misiura, M., Mitoma, H., Olivito, G., Ramanoël, S., Rezaee, Z., Samstag, C.L., Schmahmann, J.D., Sekiyama, K., Wong, C.H.Y., Yamashita, M., Manto, M. (2024). Consensus Paper: Cerebellum and ageing. Cerebellum, 23, 802-832.

    • Bernard, J.A., *McOwen, K.M, *Hyunh, A.T. (2023). New frontiers for the understanding of aging: the power and possibilities of studying the cerebellum. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 54, 101311.

    • *Jackson, T.B. & Bernard, J.A. (2023). Cerebello-basal ganglia networks and cortical network global efficiency. Cerebellum, 22, 588-600.

    • *^Hicks, T.H., *^Magalhães, T.N.C., *Ballard, H.K., *Jackson, T.B., Cox, S.J., Bernard, J.A. (2023). Network segregation in aging females and evaluation of sex steroid hormones. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. 17, 1059091. (^ contributed equally)

    • *Ballard, H.K., *Jackson, T.B., Symm, A.C., Bernard, J.A. (2023). Age-related differences in functional network segregation in the context of sex and reproductive stage. Human Brain Mapping. 44, 1949-1963.

    • *Maldonado, T., *Jackson, T.B., & Bernard, J.A. (2023). Anodal cerebellar stimulation increases cortical activation: evidence for cerebellar scaffolding of cortical processing. Human Brain Mapping. 44(4), 1666-1682.

    • *Ballard, H.K., *Jackson, T.B., *Hicks, T.H., Cox, S.J., #Miller, A.C., *Maldonado, T., Bernard, J.A. (2023). Hormone-sleep interactions predict cerebellar connectivity and behavior in aging females. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 150, 106034.

    • *Hicks, T.H., *Ballard, H.K., Sang, H., & Bernard, J.A. (2022). Age-volume associations in cerebellar lobules by sex and reproductive stage. Brain Structure and Function, 227, 2439-2455.

    • *Ballard, H.K., *Jackson, T.B., *Hicks, T.H. & Bernard, J.A. (2022). The association of reproductive stage with cerebellar network connectivity across adulthood. Neurobiology of Aging, 117, 139-150.

    •  Bernard, J.A. (2022). Don’t forget the little brain: A Framework for Incorporating the Cerebellum into Our Understanding of Cognitive Aging. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 137, 104639. 

    • Bernard, J.A., *Ballard, H.K., & *Jackson, T.B. (2021). Cerebellar dentate connectivity across adulthood: a large-scale resting state functional connectivity investigation. Cerebral Cortex Communications, 2:3, tgab050.

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