Utilizing naturalistic virtual environments to assess age-related alterations of attention and episodic memory

项目摘要/摘要 衰老与空间导航和情景记忆功能的下降有关。理论模型认为 导航和情景记忆是错综复杂地联系在一起的--空间背景是情景记忆的支架， 记忆，促进编码，组织和记忆检索。一套流程， 导致导航和情景记忆障碍的因素是注意力减弱; 老年人的注意力控制和持续注意力下降可能导致空间表征差， 次优的导航策略，以及随后的记忆力下降。拟议的研究计划将 利用一系列虚拟现实（VR）空间导航范例，结合行为和神经 注意力，空间编码和记忆的标记，以检查衰老中的注意力缺陷与导航的关系 和情景记忆困难Aim 1将使用VR空间导航任务来研究如何时刻到时刻 选择性注意力和持续性注意力（通过眼动追踪和瞳孔测量评估）与空间 老年人相对于年轻人的导航性能。实验1将评估年龄相关和个体 差异（a）注意力如何与导航性能相关，（B）空间类型的相对显着性 线索（远端与近端），影响导航策略，以及（c）如何注意在初始环境 编码影响在环境变化之后计算新的空间轨迹的能力。目标2将 研究注意力的行为和神经标志物的年龄相关差异如何与 空间背景的表征和背景介导的记忆整合和干扰的调节。Expt 2将研究如何（a）注意空间背景的行为措施与情节记忆，影响 当两个重叠的事件被区分时（模式分离），减少干扰，并且当两个重叠的事件被区分时， 重叠的事件被整合，从而实现新颖的推断。实验3将使用fMRI检查（a）与年龄相关的 注意力神经系统功能的差异（例如，额顶叶皮质网络，蓝斑） 和情景记忆（例如，内侧颞叶），沿着 并行瞳孔测量法（B）测量持续注意力的行为标记的试验间差异 影响空间背景和情景记忆神经表征，以及（c）研究年龄如何与 注意力和记忆系统之间相互作用的差异影响记忆整合， 干扰总的来说，这些研究将推进和联系注意力，空间导航， 记忆与衰老过程中的早期认知、行为和神经变化之间的关系，并有望使未来的研究能够了解 注意力、导航和记忆相互作用受到疾病过程的影响（例如，阿尔茨海默病）。

Project Abstract/Summary Aging is associated with decline in spatial navigation and episodic memory function. Theoretical models argue that navigation and episodic memory are intricately linked – spatial contexts serve as scaffolds for episodic memory, facilitating the encoding, organization, and retrieval of memories. One set of processes that could contribute to both navigational and episodic memory impairments in aging is diminished attention; reduced attentional control and diminished sustained attention in older adults could lead to poor spatial representation, suboptimal navigational strategies, and subsequent declines in memory. The proposed research program will leverage a series of virtual-reality (VR) spatial navigation paradigms, in combination with behavioral and neural markers of attention, spatial coding, and memory to examine how attentional deficits in aging relate to navigation and episodic memory difficulties. Aim 1 will use a VR spatial navigation task to examine how moment-to-moment selective attention and sustained attention (assessed through eye-tracking and pupillometry) relate to spatial navigation performance in older relative to young adults. Expt 1 will assess both age-related and individual differences in (a) how attention relates to navigation performance, (b) the relative salience of types of spatial cues (distal vs. proximal) that influence navigation strategies, and (c) how attention during initial environment encoding affects the ability to calculate new spatial trajectories following changes in the environment. Aim 2 will investigate how age-related differences in behavioral and neural markers of attention relate to differences in the representation of spatial context and in context-mediated regulation of memory integration and interference. Expt 2 will examine how (a) behavioral measures of attention to spatial context relate to episodic memory, influencing when two overlapping events are discriminated (pattern separation), diminishing interference, and when two overlapping events are integrated, enabling novel inferences. Expt 3 will use fMRI to examine (a) age-related differences in the function of neural systems of attention (e.g., frontoparietal cortical networks, locus coeruleus) and episodic memory (e.g., medial temporal lobe) during spatial navigation and associative encoding, along with concurrent pupillometry to (b) measure how trial-by-trial differences in behavioral markers of sustained attention influence neural representations of spatial context and episodic memory and (c) investigate how age-related differences in interactions between attentional and memory systems influence memory integration and interference. Collectively, these studies will advance and link theories of attention, spatial navigation, and memory to early cognitive, behavioral, and neural changes in aging, and promise to enable future study of how attention, navigation, and memory interactions are affected by disease processes (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease).