Education and Cognitive Functioning Across the Life Span
Education and Cognitive Functioning Across the Life Span
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DOI：
10.1177/1529100620920576
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发表时间：
2020-08-01
影响因子：
25.4
通讯作者：
Tucker-Drob, Elliot M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Lovden, Martin;Fratiglioni, Laura;Tucker-Drob, Elliot M.
认知能力是教育和职业表现、社会经济成就、健康和寿命的重要预测因素。认知能力的下降与老年人日常功能的障碍有关，但人们在成年和老年过程中认知能力下降的速度各不相同。因此，确定防止晚年认知受损的因素具有重大的社会意义。个人完成正规教育的年数与他们在整个成年期的认知功能呈正相关，并预测老年痴呆症的风险较低。这些观察结果导致了这样的命题，即延长教育可能（a）影响认知能力和（B）减缓与年龄相关的认知能力下降。我们通过回顾有关教育程度和认知老化的文献，包括最近对多个纵向队列研究和相关荟萃分析数据的分析，来评估这些命题。根据第一个命题，证据表明，教育程度对认知功能有积极影响。我们还发现证据表明，认知能力与选择接受更长时间的教育有关，并且有共同的因素（例如，父母的社会经济资源），影响教育程度和认知发展。在发展过程中，这些因素之间以及认知能力之间可能存在相互作用。教育与认知能力之间的关联在整个成年人的生命周期和所有教育水平上都很明显，包括（在某种程度上）高等教育。然而，与第二个命题相反，我们发现，教育和年龄相关的认知能力下降之间的关联是可以忽略不计的，痴呆症的阈值模型可以解释教育程度和晚年痴呆症风险之间的关联。我们的结论是，受教育程度主要通过促进成年早期出现但持续到老年的认知技能的个体差异来影响晚年的认知功能。我们还注意到，普遍缺乏对认知能力下降率的教育影响，这限制了认知老化的理论概念，如认知储备和大脑维护的概念。改善影响生命最初几十年发育的条件，对于改善成年早期的认知能力和减少与认知老化和痴呆症有关的公共卫生负担具有巨大潜力。
Cognitive abilities are important predictors of educational and occupational performance, socioeconomic attainment, health, and longevity. Declines in cognitive abilities are linked to impairments in older adults' everyday functions, but people differ from one another in their rates of cognitive decline over the course of adulthood and old age. Hence, identifying factors that protect against compromised late-life cognition is of great societal interest. The number of years of formal education completed by individuals is positively correlated with their cognitive function throughout adulthood and predicts lower risk of dementia late in life. These observations have led to the propositions that prolonging education might (a) affect cognitive ability and (b) attenuate aging-associated declines in cognition. We evaluate these propositions by reviewing the literature on educational attainment and cognitive aging, including recent analyses of data harmonized across multiple longitudinal cohort studies and related meta-analyses. In line with the first proposition, the evidence indicates that educational attainment has positive effects on cognitive function. We also find evidence that cognitive abilities are associated with selection into longer durations of education and that there are common factors (e.g., parental socioeconomic resources) that affect both educational attainment and cognitive development. There is likely reciprocal interplay among these factors, and among cognitive abilities, during development. Education-cognitive ability associations are apparent across the entire adult life span and across the full range of education levels, including (to some degree) tertiary education. However, contrary to the second proposition, we find that associations between education and aging-associated cognitive declines are negligible and that a threshold model of dementia can account for the association between educational attainment and late-life dementia risk. We conclude that educational attainment exerts its influences on late-life cognitive function primarily by contributing to individual differences in cognitive skills that emerge in early adulthood but persist into older age. We also note that the widespread absence of educational influences on rates of cognitive decline puts constraints on theoretical notions of cognitive aging, such as the concepts of cognitive reserve and brain maintenance. Improving the conditions that shape development during the first decades of life carries great potential for improving cognitive ability in early adulthood and for reducing public-health burdens related to cognitive aging and dementia.