Age differences in when - not whether - sensory regions are recruited during memory retrieval

在记忆提取过程中，感觉区域何时（而不是是否）被招募存在年龄差异

• 批准号: 1923173
• 负责人: Jaclyn Ford
• 金额: $ 63.55万
• 依托单位: Boston College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1923173&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Age; differences; when; whether; sensory

With the population aging and older adults staying in the workforce longer, the need to understand the memory changes that occur with aging is more urgent than ever. Although multiple theories have been proposed to explain age-related changes occurring in the lab, there is reason to believe that some laboratory assessments of memory may overestimate age-related deficits. Such overestimations can cause researchers and practitioners to propose and implement ineffective support strategies and solutions for older adults. The proposed research examines the possibility that researchers have been systematically misinterpreting age-related changes in memory by not giving older adults enough time to complete the task. The research looks at individual differences across individuals, as well as at changes within an individual over time, to test multiple competing theories that have been proposed to explain these changes. The outcomes of this research will improve the likelihood of eventual translational impact of laboratory studies, opening the possibility for new types of strategies that older adults can be taught to maximize their chance of memory success. This project will also encourage communication of a realistic and positive portrayal of memory changes with aging to individuals who will benefit the most from this knowledge - older adults and individuals in the community who regularly engage with and teach older adults - using social media and in-person events. Memory complaints are common among older adults, and even healthy aging is associated with significant alterations in memory performance across tasks and domains. A prevailing view in the cognitive aging literature is that such changes in older adults are related to ineffective recruitment of sensory regions due to a global sensory deficit. The prominent piece of evidence in support of this theory from the cognitive neuroscience literature has been the prevalence of age-related decreases in posterior sensory recruitment across cognitive domains. Recent research has drawn the generality of this conclusion into question by revealing that age differences in sensory recruitment during memory tasks can reflect shifts in when sensory processes are engaged during retrieval rather than in whether they are engaged. In other words, aging may not strip away older adults' ability to engage sensory processes in the service of memory; but it may prevent them from engaging the processes in the same, fast manner as young adults. The proposed research brings this new possibility into focus, honing in on mechanisms that lead to temporal shifts in the recruitment of sensory regions and the behavioral consequences of these shifts. This research examines possible alternatives to the standard sensory deficit hypothesis, using cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. To accomplish the research aims, this proposal brings together a team of researchers who have a history of collaboration and complementary expertise in the cognitive neuroscience of aging and memory, structural MRI analysis, physiological age-related neural changes, and quantitative methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

随着人口老龄化和老年人工作时间的延长，了解随着年龄增长而发生的记忆变化的需求比以往任何时候都更加迫切。尽管已经提出了多种理论来解释实验室中发生的与年龄相关的变化，但有理由相信，一些实验室对记忆的评估可能高估了与年龄相关的缺陷。这种高估可能导致研究人员和从业人员提出和实施无效的支持策略和解决方案，为老年人。这项拟议中的研究考察了这样一种可能性，即研究人员没有给老年人足够的时间来完成任务，从而系统性地误解了与年龄相关的记忆变化。这项研究着眼于个体之间的个体差异，以及个体内部随时间的变化，以检验多种相互竞争的理论，这些理论被提出来解释这些变化。这项研究的结果将提高实验室研究的最终转化影响的可能性，为老年人可以学习的新策略开辟了可能性，以最大限度地提高他们记忆成功的机会。该项目还将鼓励通过社交媒体和面对面的活动，向那些将从这一知识中获益最多的人——老年人和社区中经常与老年人接触和教育老年人的个人——传达有关衰老带来的记忆变化的现实和积极的描述。对记忆力的抱怨在老年人中很常见，即使是健康的衰老也与不同任务和领域的记忆力表现的显著改变有关。在认知衰老的文献中，一个普遍的观点是，老年人的这种变化与由于全球感觉缺陷而导致的感觉区域的无效招募有关。认知神经科学文献中支持这一理论的重要证据是，随着年龄的增长，认知领域的后感觉招募能力普遍下降。最近的一项研究对这一结论的普遍性提出了质疑，研究表明，在记忆任务中，感觉补充的年龄差异可以反映在检索过程中，感觉过程何时参与，而不是是否参与。换句话说，衰老可能不会剥夺老年人参与感官过程以服务于记忆的能力；但这可能会阻止他们像年轻人一样以同样快速的方式参与这些过程。这项拟议的研究将这种新的可能性纳入焦点，专注于导致感觉区域招募的时间变化的机制以及这些变化的行为后果。本研究考察了标准感觉缺陷假说的可能替代方案，采用横断面和纵向设计。为了实现研究目标，本提案汇集了一组在衰老和记忆认知神经科学，结构MRI分析，生理年龄相关神经变化和定量方法方面具有合作历史和互补专业知识的研究人员。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。