CBR Seminar Series: Shalom Henderson
CBR Seminar Series: Shalom Henderson, August 31, 2026
Title: Characterizing neural signatures of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders using functional near- infrared spectroscopy
Abstract:
Neurovascular dysfunction is increasingly recognized as one of the earliest physiological changes in Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD), often preceding overt cognitive decline. Although functional neuroimaging has provided important insights into these alterations, many existing approaches are costly, laboratory-based, and rely on highly constrained cognitive tasks that may not capture the complexities of everyday communication. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) offers a portable, non-invasive approach for measuring cortical hemodynamics during naturalistic language tasks, providing new opportunities to investigate the neural basis of communication across the spectrum of cognitive aging. Ongoing work is exploring how integrating naturalistic language paradigms with fNIRS may improve the early detection and characterization of functional brain changes across the ADRD continuum.
Bio:
Shalom K. Henderson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a postdoctoral associate and speech-language pathologist at Boston University’s Center for Brain Recovery. She earned her Ph.D. in Medical Science from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, where her research focused on the integration of neuroscience, cognition, and clinical care in neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Henderson‘s research investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language and cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative disorders, with particular emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease, primary progressive aphasia, and frontotemporal dementia.