Systems Cognitive Neuroscience of Healthy Ageing: Population-Representative Studies of Functional Plasticity and Neural Change

健康老龄化的系统认知神经科学：功能可塑性和神经变化的群体代表性研究

• 批准号: BB/H008217/1
• 负责人: Lorraine Tyler
• 金额: $ 534.54万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2010 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FH008217%2F1
• 关键词: Systems; Cognitive; Neuroscience; Healthy; Ageing

As greater numbers of us are living longer, it is increasingly important to understand how we can age healthily. Growing older involves dramatic changes to all aspects of our lives, but one of the most important concerns is our mental or 'cognitive' health. This research focuses on the cognitive abilities that enable us to function in the world, including memory, attention, emotion, language, action. We aim to understand how individuals can best retain these abilities into old age. Addressing this issue requires us to understand how brain structure and function support cognitive performance. Recent developments in neuroimaging technology show that as we age there is widespread loss of brain tissue in regions important for everyday cognition. Much research has focused on this tissue loss, and its role in cognitive decline in later life. However, other findings paint a more positive picture. While some cognitive abilities decline with normal ageing, many are spared. Moreover, cognitive decline doesn't occur abruptly at a pensionable age: cognitive abilities follow different trajectories across the lifespan, some remaining stable into our 80s, and some beginning to decline even in our 30s. Underpinning this complex pattern of spared and impaired cognition are complex interactions between neural structure and activity. A growing number of studies show that the brain responds flexibly to tissue loss, recruiting other brain regions to support neural function. This functional plasticity is possible because cognitive abilities, like memory or attention, are not underpinned by single brain regions, but by networks of regions. Successful ageing is therefore characterised by successful functional plasticity. Although ageing is often stereotyped as a time of mental restriction and inflexibility, cognitive neuroscience reveals that across the adult lifespan individuals make flexible use of available resources, including recruiting other regions and cognitive processes when necessary. Research Aims and Objectives Our aim is to identify what determines successful flexibility. This requires us to sample across the adult lifespan, measuring different aspects of neural structure and activity, and of cognitive performance. We will study a cohort of 700 participants aged 18 to 88, who will have a structural brain scan and perform key cognitive tests. Some members of this cohort will also participate in functional neuroimaging experiments to measure brain activity during cognitive tasks. We will ask (1) Is functional plasticity maintained across the lifespan and does it vary across cognitive abilities? (2) Are the distributed neural networks that support different cognitive abilities preserved in ageing? (3) Does the preservation of different cognitive functions vary, given the variability of neural change in different brain regions? Potential applications and benefits Our research will generate a unique resource of neuroimaging and cognitive measures about change across the adult lifespan, generating important benefits for academic researchers, the older community, and wider society. It will provide major contributions to ageing research, and provide a 'virtual brain and behaviour bank' acting as a continuing international resource for future research. Our focus on healthy ageing will be educationally important for all older adults. Few studies of ageing focus on healthy ageing, and the prevalent view of ageing is of deficit and ill-health. Our focus is on what characterizes older adults with preserved performance, a perspective with huge implications for how society views the ageing process. Moreover, our detailed analysis of neural and cognitive flexibility will help identify the conditions under which older adults may be aided by interventions. Finally, because our findings will help specify normal age-related deficits, they will show how normal ageing differs from pathological ageing in conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease.

随着越来越多的人活得更长，了解我们如何健康地变老变得越来越重要。随着年龄的增长，我们生活的各个方面都发生了巨大的变化，但最重要的问题之一是我们的心理或“认知”健康。这项研究的重点是使我们能够在世界上发挥作用的认知能力，包括记忆，注意力，情感，语言，行动。我们的目标是了解个人如何最好地将这些能力保留到老年。解决这个问题需要我们了解大脑结构和功能如何支持认知表现。神经成像技术的最新发展表明，随着年龄的增长，对日常认知至关重要的区域的脑组织会普遍丧失。许多研究都集中在这种组织损失上，以及它在晚年认知能力下降中的作用。然而，其他调查结果描绘了一幅更为积极的画面。虽然一些认知能力会随着正常的衰老而下降，但许多人不会。此外，认知能力的下降不会在退休年龄突然发生：认知能力在整个生命周期中遵循不同的轨迹，有些人在80多岁时保持稳定，有些人甚至在30多岁时开始下降。神经结构和活动之间复杂的相互作用是这种复杂的认知受损和幸存模式的基础。越来越多的研究表明，大脑对组织损失的反应很灵活，会招募其他大脑区域来支持神经功能。这种功能可塑性是可能的，因为认知能力，如记忆或注意力，不是由单个大脑区域支撑的，而是由区域网络支撑的。因此，成功的衰老的特征在于成功的功能可塑性。尽管人们通常认为衰老是一个智力受限和易受影响的时期，但认知神经科学揭示，在整个成年期，个体会灵活利用可用资源，包括在必要时招募其他区域和认知过程。研究目的和目标我们的目标是确定是什么决定了成功的灵活性。这就要求我们在成年人的整个生命周期中进行采样，测量神经结构和活动以及认知表现的不同方面。我们将研究700名年龄在18至88岁之间的参与者，他们将进行结构性大脑扫描并进行关键的认知测试。该队列的一些成员还将参与功能性神经成像实验，以测量认知任务期间的大脑活动。我们会问：（1）功能可塑性是否在整个生命周期中保持不变？它是否因认知能力而异？(2)支持不同认知能力的分布式神经网络是否会在衰老过程中保留下来？(3)考虑到不同大脑区域神经变化的可变性，不同认知功能的保存是否也会有所不同？潜在的应用和好处我们的研究将产生一个独特的资源，神经成像和认知措施的变化在整个成人的生命周期，产生重要的利益，学术研究人员，老年社区，和更广泛的社会。它将为老龄化研究做出重大贡献，并提供一个“虚拟大脑和行为银行”，作为未来研究的持续国际资源。我们对健康老龄化的关注将对所有老年人的教育具有重要意义。很少有关于老龄化的研究关注健康老龄化，对老龄化的普遍看法是赤字和健康不良。我们的重点是什么特点老年人与保存性能，一个角度与社会如何看待老龄化过程的巨大影响。此外，我们对神经和认知灵活性的详细分析将有助于确定老年人可能受到干预的条件。最后，因为我们的发现将有助于确定正常的年龄相关缺陷，它们将显示正常衰老与阿尔茨海默病等疾病的病理性衰老有何不同。

项目成果

The Hippocampal Film Editor: Sensitivity and Specificity to Event Boundaries in Continuous Experience.

海马电影剪辑师：连续体验中事件边界的敏感性和特异性。

• DOI: 10.17863/cam.30304
• 发表时间: 2018
• 作者: Ben-Yakov A

Power contours: optimising sample size and precision in experimental psychology and human neuroscience

功率轮廓：优化实验心理学和人类神经科学中的样本量和精度

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1902.06122
• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Baker D

The hippocampal film-editor: sensitivity and specificity to event boundaries in continuous experience

海马电影剪辑师：连续体验中对事件边界的敏感性和特异性

• DOI: 10.1101/273409
• 发表时间: 2018
• 作者: Ben-Yakov A

Age-related differences in functional network segregation in the context of sex and reproductive stage.

• DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26184
• 发表时间: 2023-04-01
• 期刊: Human brain mapping
• 影响因子: 4.8

Power contours: Optimising sample size and precision in experimental psychology and human neuroscience.

• DOI: 10.1037/met0000337
• 发表时间: 2021-06
• 期刊: Psychological methods
• 影响因子: 7
• 作者: Baker DH;Vilidaite G;Lygo FA;Smith AK;Flack TR;Gouws AD;Andrews TJ
• 通讯作者: Andrews TJ