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

项目总结 阿尔茨海默病(AD)的显著症状，也是认知健康人群中最常见的主诉 老年人的记忆力丧失，特别是在日常活动中，如与心爱的人交谈，与人共进晚餐 朋友们，去一趟杂货店。然而，记住这些类型的 这些事件和那些通常在实验室或神经心理学电池中测量的事件，通常缺乏 真实世界的语境意义。这个项目将调查日常活动的记忆故障，方法是使用 动态的真实世界刺激，其中情节记忆是在连续的经验流中形成的。我们会 测试老年人使用语义知识在多大程度上创造稳定的心理表征 日常经验的连续流，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进可能有利于老年人记忆日常信息的能力， 在日常生活中做出有效的决定(例如，关于医疗保健和遗产规划的决定)，并进行互动 有了新技术--所有这些都将提高他们的生活质量。这一目标与美国国立卫生研究院的核心高度相关 使命“寻求有关生命系统的性质和行为的基本知识，以及 这些知识有助于增进健康、延长寿命、减少疾病和残疾。该项目的目标1将 确定事件记忆缺陷是否可以通过与年龄相关的保持稳定的差异来解释 体验过程中的心理表征。目标2将确定老年人是否能够有效地 将新的事件信息集成到现有知识结构中。目标3将确定之前的提示是否 知识可以改善AD早期的事件记忆。该项目将使用创新的组合 事件编码的行为和神经生理学测量以达到这些目的。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类活动 回忆。我们预测，mPFC中介的先验知识将促进新事件的整合 具有先验知识的信息为老年人带来更好的分段和事件记忆。然而， 当没有可用的先验知识时，人员可以有效地对活动进行细分的程度(支持 通过mPFC-海马区耦合)将预测记忆性能。此外，我们预测，提示与 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奠定基础 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 这些活动符合NIA对老年人的愿景，即“享有健康和独立，保持 身心健康，继续为家庭和社区做出积极贡献。

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.”