Strategy training to support healthy cognitive ageing: behavioural, neuroimaging, and real-world investigations

支持健康认知老龄化的策略培训：行为、神经影像和现实世界调查

• 批准号: ES/X01133X/1
• 负责人: Louise Nicholls
• 金额: $ 106.97万
• 依托单位: University of Strathclyde
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX01133X%2F1
• 关键词: Strategy; training; support; healthy; cognitive

Our project is aimed at boosting memory and thinking skills ('cognition') through the adult lifespan, and helping prevent impairment in older age. The abilities underlying moment-to-moment functioning typically decline gradually as we age. For example, we might notice more short-term memory slips ('what did I come in here for?'). With rapidly ageing populations, rates of cognitive impairment and dementia are increasing (WHO, 2021). Accessible, cost-effective interventions that promote healthy and active ageing are required (WHO, 2020). Importantly, the ways in which we approach cognitive tasks, such as using particular strategies, could help to maintain our thinking skills and even delay onset of impairment and dementia (Cabeza et al. 2018). Instructing people to use their cognitive abilities in specific ways can therefore boost performance, but more research is needed to inform future interventions (WHO, 2019).We are experts in cognitive ageing, dementia, and strategy training, using lab-based and 'real-world' experiments, and eye-tracking and brain imaging techniques (e.g. Allen ... & Nicholls, 2021; Gonzalez ... & Burke, 2016; Parra, ... Nicholls, et al., 2019; von Bastian et al., 2022). Using these methods, we propose to examine how strategies can effectively enhance younger and older adults' cognitive functioning. Strategies include actively rehearsing information or prioritising important details (Gonthier, 2021). Indeed, we showed that younger and older adults' visual short-term memory, which is vulnerable to age-related decline (Nicholls & English, 2020), can be boosted by training in prioritisation (Allen et al., 2021). However, we now need to investigate strategies comprehensively to understand which can work well and for whom, and the associated patterns of brain activity, during everyday tasks.Our proposed research will incorporate the latest theoretical and methodological developments in cognition and ageing research alongside co-design with targeted user groups from the community and the voluntary, clinical, and public sectors. Our first set of studies will involve traditional, lab-based experiments measuring performance of real-world short- and long-term memory tasks, based on validated protocols. Younger and older adults will be asked to remember objects presented in realistic, virtual scenes (e.g. yellow teapot on a kitchen worktop). We will comprehensively establish the range of strategies they report and assess the relationships with memory performance. We will then investigate strategies and cognitive performance over time using an 'experience sampling' method that we have previously validated with older adults. This involves daily participation via smartphones in everyday life, and will further establish variation due to factors such as personality and mental wellbeing. Finally, we will assess the impacts of training younger and older adults to use the two best candidate strategies that emerged from the earlier work. We will also track eye movements related to strategy and cognitive performance, and employ innovative, cost-effective, and non-invasive methods for establishing associated brain functioning patterns.We will provide important new insights regarding cognition and cognitive ageing while developing accessible, scalable, and cost-effective approaches to supporting cognition in the real world. Throughout, we will engage our stakeholders (e.g. community-based older adults, NHS Lanarkshire, Scottish Government Age Equality Network, Scottish Older People's Assembly, U3A), and an independent expert academic panel. We will share our findings via academic publications and conferences, and an extensive range of public engagement activities, culminating in a 'Strategy Toolkit' developed for and with stakeholders. This will provide state-of-the-art, accessible, evidence-based guidelines and resources on cognition and cognitive ageing, and how to use strategies to support everyday functioning.

我们的项目旨在通过成年人的一生提高记忆力和思维能力(认知能力)，并帮助防止老年人的损伤。随着年龄的增长，瞬间运作的基本能力通常会逐渐下降。例如，我们可能会注意到更多的短期记忆失误(‘我来这里是为了什么？’)。随着人口迅速老龄化，认知障碍和痴呆症的比率正在增加(世卫组织，2021年)。需要可获得的、成本效益高的干预措施，以促进健康和积极的老龄化(世卫组织，2020年)。重要的是，我们处理认知任务的方式，例如使用特定的策略，可以帮助保持我们的思维能力，甚至推迟损害和痴呆的发生(Cabeza等人)。2018年)。因此，指导人们以特定的方式使用他们的认知能力可以提高成绩，但还需要更多的研究来为未来的干预提供信息(世卫组织，2019年)。我们是认知老化、痴呆症和策略培训方面的专家，使用基于实验室和真实世界的实验，以及眼睛跟踪和脑成像技术(例如，Allen...&Nicholls，2021；Gonzalez...&Burke，2016；Parra，...Nicholls等人，2019年；von Bastian等人，2022年)。使用这些方法，我们建议研究策略如何有效地提高年轻人和老年人的认知功能。策略包括积极排练信息或确定重要细节的优先顺序(Gonthier，2021)。事实上，我们表明，年轻人和老年人的视觉短期记忆容易受到年龄相关的下降的影响(Nicholls&English，2020)，可以通过优先排序的训练来提高(Allen等人，2021)。然而，我们现在需要全面调查策略，以了解哪些策略对谁有效，以及日常任务中大脑活动的相关模式。我们建议的研究将纳入认知和衰老研究的最新理论和方法发展，以及与来自社区和志愿、临床和公共部门的目标用户群体的联合设计。我们的第一组研究将包括基于实验室的传统实验，基于经过验证的协议来测量真实世界中短期和长期记忆任务的性能。年轻的和年长的成年人将被要求记住现实的虚拟场景中出现的物体(例如厨房工作台上的黄色茶壶)。我们将全面建立他们报告的策略范围，并评估与记忆成绩的关系。然后，我们将使用我们之前在老年人身上验证过的“经验抽样”方法，研究策略和认知表现随时间的变化。这涉及到通过智能手机参与日常生活，并将进一步建立由于个性和心理健康等因素而产生的差异。最后，我们将评估培训年轻人和老年人使用早期工作中出现的两个最佳候选策略的影响。我们还将跟踪与策略和认知表现相关的眼球运动，并使用创新、成本效益和非侵入性的方法来建立相关的大脑功能模式。我们将提供关于认知和认知老化的重要新见解，同时开发可访问、可扩展和成本效益高的方法来支持现实世界的认知。在整个过程中，我们将与我们的利益相关者(例如基于社区的老年人、拉纳克郡国民健康保险制度、苏格兰政府年龄平等网络、苏格兰老年人大会、U3A)和一个独立的专家学术小组进行接触。我们将通过学术出版物和会议以及广泛的公共参与活动来分享我们的发现，最终形成一个为利益相关者开发的“战略工具包”。这将提供关于认知和认知老化以及如何使用战略支持日常运作的最新、可获得的、基于证据的指导方针和资源。