Comparative studies of the age-related changes of cognitive function in humans and Japanese macaques

本研究以行为学测量和非侵入性神经影像学技术为基础，探讨了人类和非人灵长类认知功能的年龄相关变化。特别是，它重点关注抑制功能，并研究了反应抑制功能如何随着年龄的增长而下降。这项研究表明，作为人类年龄的函数，它不一定是不可逆转的，但在某些情况下可以恢复到与年轻人相当的水平。在这种情况下，神经影像学测量表明前额区域的神经活动相应增加。西蒙任务的实验也揭示了人类和非人类灵长类动物之间与年龄相关的困难的差异，在某些情况下，非人类的表现上级人类。

The present research has been undertaken to investigate age-related change of cognitive function in both humans and non-human primates on the basis of behavioral measurements and non-invasive neuroimaging techniques. Particularly, it has focused upon the inhibitory function and examined how response-inhibitory function declined according to aging. The study has revealed that it was not necessarily irreversible as a function of age in humans, but could be restored to the level that was equivalent to younger persons on some occasions. In such cases, neuroimaging measurements have indicated a corresponding increase of the neural activity in prefrontal regions. The experimentation with Simon task has also revealed a difference in the age-related difficulties between humans and non-human primates, and in some cases, the performance was superior in non-humans to in humans.