Chelsea Hennessy

With a background in psychology, and a keen interest in the intricacies of the brain, I’m on a mission to contribute to the ever-evolving field of healthy brain ageing 🧠✨🕵🏼‍♀️.

I am currently completing my PhD in Cognitive & Behavioural Neuroscience with the Healthy Brain Ageing Research Team at UniSC’s Thompson Institute 👵🏾👴🏻. My project focusses on the brain regions that drive goal-directed (i.e., thoughtful) versus habitual (i.e., automatic) behaviours during healthy ageing.

My preliminary behavioural study identified that older adults may face challenges in adapting behaviours, leaning more towards routine responses🔒🔄. On the other hand, younger adults can change behaviours when their goals change 🥅 ✅. To understand this further, my supervisors, collaborators, and I have developed a task-based fMRI sequence investigating the brain regions involved in these behaviours so we can compare them between older and younger adults 🧠🔍.