The role of prior knowledge and event segmentation in age- and Alzheimer's-related changes in event memory

项目摘要 阿尔茨海默病（AD）的标志性症状和认知健康人群中最常见的主诉是 老年人是记忆丧失，特别是对于日常事件，如与亲人的谈话，与家人一起吃饭， 朋友们去杂货店买东西然而，在记住这些类型的记忆之间有一个关键的区别。 事件和那些经常在实验室或神经心理电池中测量的事件，这些通常缺乏 现实世界的语境意义这个项目将通过使用 动态的真实世界刺激，其中情景记忆是在连续的经验流中形成的。我们将 测试老年人在多大程度上使用语义知识来创造稳定的心理表征， 持续不断的日常经历，以及这种能力是否在AD的早期阶段发生变化。 这种与知识相关的改善可能有助于老年人记住日常信息的能力， 在日常生活中做出有效的决定（例如，关于医疗保健和房地产规划的决策），并与 所有这些都将提高他们的生活质量。这一目标与NIH的核心高度相关 使命“寻求有关生命系统的性质和行为的基础知识， 这些知识可以增进健康、延长寿命、减少疾病和残疾。”该项目的目标1将 确定事件记忆中的缺陷是否可以通过维持稳定的年龄相关差异来解释。 在经历中的心理表征。目标2将确定老年人是否能有效地 将新事件信息整合到现有知识结构中。目标3将决定是否提示优先 知识改善早期AD的事件记忆。该项目将采用创新的组合， 事件编码的行为和神经生理学措施，以解决这些目标。它还将使用动态 日常生活中经常遇到的活动-老年人报告有困难的那种 回忆。我们预测mPFC介导的先验知识将促进新事件的整合 信息与先验知识，从而更好的分割和事件记忆的老年人。然而，在这方面， 当没有先验知识时，人们可以有效地细分活动的程度（支持 通过mPFC-海马耦合）将预测记忆表现。此外，我们预测，提示相关 知识将为认知健康的老年人学习新的图式一致的事件信息提供支架。 成人和早期AD患者。我们的目标是提高老年人每天编码和检索的能力 活动与NIA的老年人愿景相一致，即“享受健康和独立， 身心健康，并继续为家庭和社区作出积极贡献。”

PROJECT SUMMARY The hallmark symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and most common complaint among cognitively healthy older adults is memory loss, especially for everyday events such as conversations with a loved one, a meal with friends, a trip to the grocery store. However, there is a critical difference between remembering these types of events and those that are often measured in the laboratory or in neuropsychological batteries, which often lack real-world contextual meaning. This project will investigate failures in memory for everyday activities by using dynamic real-world stimuli in which episodic memory is formed during a continuous stream of experience. We will test the extent to which older adults use semantic knowledge to create stable mental representations during the continuous stream of everyday experiences, and whether this ability changes in the early stages of AD. Such knowledge-related improvements could benefit older adults' ability to remember day-to-day information, make effective decisions in everyday life (e.g., decisions about healthcare and estate planning), and interact with new technology––all of which will improve their quality of life. This goal is highly relevant to the NIH core mission “to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.” Aim 1 of this project will determine whether deficits in event memory are explained by age-related differences in maintaining stable mental representations during an experience. Aim 2 will determine whether older adults can effectively integrate new event information into existing knowledge structures. Aim 3 will determine whether cueing prior knowledge improves event memory in early-stage AD. The project will use an innovative combination of behavioral and neurophysiological measures of event encoding to address these aims. It will also use dynamic activities that are often encountered in daily life—the kind that older adults report having difficulties remembering. We predict that mPFC-mediated prior knowledge will facilitate the integration of new event information with prior knowledge resulting in better segmentation and event memory for older adults. However, when no prior knowledge is available, the extent to which people can effectively segment an activity (supported by mPFC-hippocampal coupling) will predict memory performance. Further, we predict that cueing relevant knowledge will scaffold the learning of new schema-consistent event information in cognitively healthy older adults and those with early AD. Our goal of improving older adults' ability to encode and retrieve everyday activities is aligned with the NIA's vision for older adults to “enjoy robust health and independence, remain physically and mentally active, and continue to make positive contributions to their families and communities.”