Social security: The influence of social relationships on cognitive, affective, and neural aging

项目摘要 尽管越来越多的证据表明，随着年龄的增长，人类的情感生活也会有所改善， 身体和认知健康的挑战，支持这些改善的机制主要是 未知一种可能性是社会环境和社会关系的各个方面防止了 有害的老化影响，从而促进健康。理解社会环境之间的相互作用 认知、情感和神经行为的健康结果对发展中国家的健康至关重要。 有效的干预措施，为那些遭受衰老有害影响的人，包括抑郁症， 孤独然而，为了检验因果关系而操纵人类的社会关系是不道德的。 假设为了解决这个机械问题，我们利用了一个强大的人类社会动物模型， 认知，情感和神经行为老化-恒河猴-为了评估是否强大的社会 环境和高质量的关系促进和保护健康的情感，认知， 神经行为老化，而社会环境的限制损害它。此外，我们评估 社会干预，即增加获得高质量社会伙伴的机会，是否可以改善认知， 情感和神经行为的结果，一旦他们已经受到损害的老化过程。我们将会限制 然后恢复年轻和年老猴子的社会环境， 功能（认知，情感和大脑结构和功能的神经影像学测量）与这些同时进行 操纵因此，这一工作方案是确定机制的关键的第一步。 社会环境对神经行为老化的影响，以及评估一种可能的干预措施， 使经历过不健康衰老的人受益。

Project Summary Although accumulating evidence in humans points to improvements in emotional life with age, even in the context of physical and cognitive health challenges, the mechanisms that support those improvements are largely unknown. One possibility is that aspects of the social environment and social relationships guard against deleterious aging effects and thus promote wellbeing. Understanding the interplay between social environment and cognitive, affective, and neurobehavioral health outcomes across the lifespan is critical for developing effective interventions for people who suffer from the deleterious effects of aging, including depression and loneliness. Nevertheless, it is not ethical to manipulate humans’ social relationships in order to test causal hypotheses. To address this mechanistic question, we capitalize on a robust animal model of human social, cognitive, affective, and neurobehavioral aging – the rhesus monkey – in order evaluate whether robust social environments and high-quality relationships promote and protect healthy affective, cognitive, and neurobehavioral aging while restrictions of the social environment compromise it. Additionally, we evaluate whether social interventions, namely increasing access to high quality social partners, may improve cognitive, affective, and neurobehavioral outcomes once they have been compromised by aging processes. We will restrict and then rejuvenate the social environment in both young and aged monkeys, and measure neurobehavioral function (cognition, affect, and neuroimaging measures of brain structure and function) concurrently with these manipulations. In this way, this program of work represents a critical first step in determining the mechanistic impact of social environment on neurobehavioral aging in addition to evaluating a potential intervention that could benefit individuals who have experienced unhealthy aging.