Michael Yassa

Professor and Chancellor’s Fellow UC Irvine

  • Irvine CA

Michael Yassa is interested in how learning and memory mechanisms are altered in aging and neuropsychiatric disease.

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Biography

Michael Yassa's laboratory is interested in how the brain learns and remembers information, and how learning and memory mechanisms are altered in aging and neuropsychiatric disease. The central questions in their research are:

What are the neural mechanisms that support learning and memory?
How are memory circuits and pathways altered in the course of aging, dementia, and neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety?
How can we identify early preclinical biomarkers that can distinguish between normal and pathological neurocognitive changes so that we can better design diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

To address these questions, Yassa develops and refines cognitive assessment tools that specifically target memory processes and computations, such as pattern separation. Yassa's lab also develops, optimizes, and uses a host of advanced brain measurement techniques including high-resolution structural, functional, and diffusion MRI, PET, EEG, and intracranial recordings (ECoG) in patients, to explore the brain’s architecture at very fine levels of detail.

Yassa's lab combines these approaches with more traditional psychophysics including measurements of galvanic skin response (skin conductance), heart rate variability, and eye tracking. They are also working with collaborators to develop novel platforms for cellular resolution functional imaging in awake, behaving animals using novel MRI tracers. Finally, we are actively developing and testing several pharmacological and nonpharmacological cognitive enhancement interventions in older adults at risk for dementia, including studies of physical exercise.

Areas of Expertise

Neurobiology and Behavior
Aging and Alzheimer's Disease
Memory and Disease
Memory
Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Accomplishments

Ossoff Scholars Award in Cognitive Disorders Research

2011

Alzheimer’s Treatment Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Roger W. Russell Scholar’s Award in the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

2010

Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

Carl W. Cotman Scholar’s Award in the Neurobiology of Neurological Disorders

2010

MIND Institute, University of California, Irvine

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Education

UC Irvine

PhD

Neurobiology and Behavior

2010

The Johns Hopkins University

MA

Psychological and Brain Sciences

2007

The Johns Hopkins University

BA

Neuroscience

2002

Affiliations

  • American Psychological Association
  • Cognitive Neuroscience Society
  • International Neuropsychological Society

Media Appearances

Study: If You Have This Sleep Problem, You May Be More Prone to Memory Loss

The Healthy  online

2025-05-31

One of the study’s authors, Dr. Michael Yassa, further explained in a press release: “We may have found a missing piece of the puzzle. Low oxygen during REM sleep seems to harm tiny blood vessels in the brain, and that damage shows up in areas we rely on for memory. This might help explain why even mild sleep apnea can impact brain health long before memory problems show up.” Dr. Yassa is a professor of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California, Irvine. … REM sleep is key because during it “your brain does some of its most important cleanup and memory storage work,” said Destiny E. Berisha, an author of the study and a doctoral researcher in neurobiology and behavior at UC Irvine.

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Does Sleep Apnea Pave Way for Cognitive Decline?

Futurity  online

2025-05-13

“Our study found that low oxygen levels from obstructive sleep apnea may be linked to cognitive decline due to damage to the small blood vessels in the brain and the downstream impact of this damage on parts of the brain associated with memory,” says co-corresponding author Bryce A. Mander, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California, Irvine. … Co-corresponding author Michael Yassa, UC Irvine professor of neurobiology and behavior and director of the campus’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory, adds: … “Low oxygen during REM sleep seems to harm tiny blood vessels in the brain … This might help explain why even mild sleep apnea can impact brain health long before memory problems show up.” … “REM sleep is when your brain does some of its most important cleanup and memory storage work,” says co-corresponding author Destiny E. Berisha, a doctoral researcher in neurobiology and behavior at UC Irvine. “If oxygen levels drop during that time, we may be interrupting critical maintenance for the brain’s memory systems.”

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Women are better than men at science job interviews

Nature  online

2024-10-09

An investigation into academic hiring outcomes for biological-science roles has suggested a surprising trend: women who applied for assistant professor positions in North America were more likely to get job offers than were men. … Michael Yassa, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, says that the bioRxiv study provides an interesting snapshot of a crucial part of the hiring process. He co-authored a 2023 report3 in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal that detailed successful efforts at his institution to diversify faculty recruitment in the field of biomedical sciences. Among other things, his institution took steps to ensure greater gender balance in hiring committees.

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Articles

Associations between pattern separation and hippocampal subfield structure and function vary along the lifespan: A 7 T imaging study

Scientific Reports

Joost M. Riphagen, Lisa Schmiedek, Ed H. B. M. Gronenschild, Michael A. Yassa, Nikos Priovoulos, Alexander T. Sack, Frans R. J. Verhey & Heidi I. L. Jacobs

2020

Pattern separation (PS) describes the process by which the brain discriminates similar stimuli from previously encoded stimuli. This fundamental process requires the intact processing by specific subfields in the hippocampus and can be examined using mnemonic discrimination tasks. Previous studies reported different patterns for younger and older individuals between mnemonic discrimination performance and hippocampal subfield activation.

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1100 Self-Monitoring Of PVT Performance In Healthy Adults And Individuals With MDD

Sleep

O Galli, N Goel, M Basner, J Detre, M Thase, Y Sheline, H Rao, D Dinges, P Gehrman

2020

Negativity bias in depression has been repeatedly demonstrated in the judgment and decision-making literature. Research investigating the impact of sleep deprivation on self-evaluation of performance in healthy or depressed populations is limited. We examined 1) whether individuals with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) exhibit a negativity bias in subjective ratings of performance on the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) as compared with healthy adults, and 2) the impact of total sleep deprivation (TSD) on these ratings.

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Pattern Separation and Source Memory Engage Distinct Hippocampal and Neocortical Regions during Retrieval

Journal of Neuroscience

Rebecca F. Stevenson, Zachariah M. Reagh, Amanda P. Chun, Elizabeth A. Murray and Michael A. Yassa

2020

Detailed representations of past events rely on the ability to form associations between items and their contextual features (i.e., source memory), as well as the ability to distinctly represent a new event from a similar one stored in memory (i.e., pattern separation). These processes are both known to engage the hippocampus, although whether they share similar mechanisms remains unclear. It is also unknown if, and in which region(s), activity related to these processes overlaps and/or interacts.

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