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下降有关。理论模型认为 导航和情节记忆是错综复杂地联系在一起的--空间背景充当了情节记忆的脚手架 记忆，便于对记忆进行编码、组织和检索。一组流程可以 导致航海和情景记忆损害的衰老是注意力减少；减少 老年人的注意力控制和持续性注意力减弱可能会导致空间表征不佳， 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，与行为和神经相结合 注意力、空间编码和记忆的标记物，以检查衰老中的注意力缺陷如何与导航相关 以及情节记忆困难。目标1将使用VR空间导航任务来检查时刻到时刻 选择性注意和持续注意(通过眼球跟踪和斜视测量进行评估)与空间相关 相对于年轻人而言，老年人的导航表现。实验1将评估与年龄有关的和个人的 (A)注意力与导航性能的关系，(B)空间类型的相对显著程度的差异 影响导航策略的线索(远端与近端)，以及(C)在初始环境中如何注意 编码会影响在环境变化后计算新的空间轨迹的能力。目标2将 研究注意的行为和神经标记物的年龄相关差异与年龄差异之间的关系 空间语境的表征以及在语境中对记忆整合和干扰的调节。例证 2将研究(A)空间背景注意的行为测量如何与情景记忆有关，从而影响 当两个重叠事件被区分时(模式分离)，减少干扰，并且当两个 重叠的事件被整合在一起，实现了新的推论。实验3将使用fMRI检查(A)与年龄相关的 注意神经系统功能的差异(如额顶叶皮质网络、蓝斑) 以及在空间导航和关联编码期间的情景记忆(例如，内侧颞叶)，以及 同时进行瞳孔测量，以(B)测量一次又一次的持续注意行为标记的差异 影响空间背景和情景记忆的神经表征，以及(C)研究年龄如何相关 注意和记忆系统之间相互作用的差异影响记忆整合和 干扰。总体而言，这些研究将推进和联系注意力、空间导航和 记忆在衰老过程中的早期认知、行为和神经变化，并有望使未来的研究成为可能 注意力、导航和记忆的相互作用会受到疾病过程(例如阿尔茨海默病)的影响。

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).