Irene Nagel, born in Heidelberg (Germany) studied psychology with an emphasis on cognitive neuroscience in Maastricht (the Netherlands), and in Berkeley (California, USA). In her diploma thesis she investigated the neural implementation of verbal response selection, together with E.Schumacher and M. D’Esposito and R.Goebel. Currently she is a PhD student at the department for lifespan psychology of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and a fellow of the international “LIFE” research school. She is interested in changes in cognitive function across the lifespan, and in the relation of these changes to age-related alterations in the neural implementation of these functions.