ATTENTION PROFILES IN HEALTHY AGING AND EARLY STAGE DAT

最近的证据表明，注意力的组成部分可以作为阿尔茨海默型痴呆（DAT）发病的早期指标。例如，我们当前项目的工作表明，在疾病的早期阶段，注意力控制的高级方面是缺乏的，这些控制系统有助于观察到的记忆变化。然而，迄今为止，对特定环境的系统性变化进行调查的工作相对较少。 注意力的组成部分与年龄和DAT或这些组成部分在不同的注意力测量和测试会话中的一致性。本提案的目标是针对注意力的特定组成部分，并提供个人注意力概况，试图将健康老龄化与阿尔茨海默病的最早阶段区分开来。从这些实验中获得的数据也将特别有助于评估最近的 有证据表明，在个体内的变异性可以作为一个标志，用于区分健康老龄化的早期阶段DAT。此外，最近的证据表明，组件的注意力可能会受到不同的人格类型的差异。因此，人格特质的五因素模型的基础上，将探讨不同的注意力配置文件，疾病发作和疾病进展。拟议的实验将分离注意力的四个不同组成部分：维持，选择，切换和分散注意力。根据现有的文献，将设计三个实验来挖掘四个组件中的每一个 的注意力，产生了12个注意力测试电池。因素分析程序将被用来确定这些任务是否负荷预测的注意成分。此外，我们将包括一个简短的标准化的注意力电池，最近开发的（注意力网络测试），以调查其关系的目标组件的注意力在本实验组。七组受试者将在第1-3年进行测试， 建议的注意力电池：年轻人、DAT个体的中年亲属、中年对照、健康的中年-老年人（平均年龄70岁）、健康的老年人（平均年龄85岁）、极轻度DAT（CDR 0.5）和轻度DAT（CDR 1）个体。在第4-5年，大约70%的人将接受重新测试，以提供第1波测试的因子结构复制，并检查 在测试过程中的个人。结合其余核心和项目的数据，该项目的数据将作为认知标记，以区分健康老龄化和疾病过程的最早阶段。

Recent evidence suggests that components of attention may serve as early indicators of the onset of dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT). For example, work from our current Project indicates that higher-level aspects of attentional control are deficient in the earliest stages of the disease, and that these control systems contribute to the observed memory changes. However, to date there has been relatively little work investigating systematic changes in the specific components of attention with age and DAT or the consistency of these components within individuals across different attentional measures and testing sessions. The goal of the present proposal is to target specific components of attention, and provide individual attentional profiles in an attempt to distinguish healthy aging from the earliest stages of Alzheimers Disease. The data obtained from these experiments will also be especially useful in evaluating recent evidence indicating that within-individual variability can serve as a marker for discriminating healthy aging from early stage DAT. In addition, recent evidence suggests that components of attention may be differentially affected by distinct personality types. Hence, personality traits based on the five-factor model of personality will be explored in relation to distinct attentional profiles, disease onset, and disease progression. The proposed experiments will isolate four distinct components of attention: maintenance, selection, switching, and divided attention. Based on the extant literature, three experiments will be designed to tap each of the four components of attention, yielding a battery of 12 attentional tests. Factor analytic procedures will be used to determine whether these tasks load on the predicted attentional components. In addition, we will include a brief standardized attention battery that has been recently developed (Attention Network Test) to investigate its relationship to the targeted components of attention in the present set of experiments. Seven groups of subjects will be tested during Years 1-3 in the proposed attention battery: young adults, middle-aged relatives of a DAT individual, middle-aged controls, healthy young-old adults (mean age 70 years), healthy old-old adults (mean age 85 years), very mild DAT (CDR 0.5) and mild DAT (CDR 1) individuals. In Years 4-5, approximately 70% of these individuals will be retested to provide a replication of the factor structure from Wave 1 testing and to examine the consistency of performance within individuals across testing sessions. In conjunction with data from the remaining Cores and Projects, the data from this project will serve as a cognitive marker to differentiate healthy aging from the earliest stages of the disease process.