Environmental Enriched Animal Models of Aging: Roles of Motor Variation and Neura

描述(申请人提供)：随着预期寿命和老年人口的不断增长，老年人的医疗保健和辅助生活成本将给美国经济带来不可持续的负担，因为老年人失去了他们的功能活动能力。到2012年，美国老年人的辅助生活成本预计将达到2480亿美元。功能灵活性丧失的核心是认知和运动功能的下降，表现为个体内部变异性的增加，即行为上的更大不一致。神经噪音增加是随机大脑活动的更高发生率，导致老年人行为更不一致。因此，科学家们正在继续寻找减轻与年龄相关的行为不一致性增加的方法。目前，减缓这些下降的因素仍不清楚，这对临床和社区发展有针对性的干预措施构成了障碍。动物模型在衰老研究中的优势在于它们的寿命较短，这使得科学家可以更快地获得结果数据。然而，在动物模型中还没有对行为不一致进行研究。最近的理论认为，在丰富的实验环境中，动物在衰老过程中表现出较小的与年龄相关的神经噪音增加。成群饲养的“丰富的”动物有机会进行社会互动，实验期间的环境也有所不同，玩具和食物的位置经常改变。然而，环境效益的具体来源仍在争论中，因为丰富的环境以一种仅靠社会化或锻炼无法复制的方式积极影响衰老。因此，一个合乎逻辑的问题是，参与不同运动模式的机会增加是否会带来丰富环境的积极影响。我们的具体目标是检验这样一种假设，即一个人所从事的运动模式的更大差异是环境丰富的好处的主要来源。我们将把衰老对神经和运动活动变异性的影响与环境提供的各种运动活动的影响联系起来。这项研究将由来自运动学、物理学和神经科学的跨学科研究团队进行，以研究衰老这一复杂的科学问题。我们的研究由于有许多创新之处，有可能实现重大的科学突破。结果表明，健康衰老的一个关键组成部分是在一生中不断获得新的运动技能，而不仅仅是体力活动。寻求减缓与年龄相关的认知和行动下降的干预措施主要集中在维持现有的功能上。这项研究的成功完成将为继续向老年人介绍新的运动技能提供证据基础，这一过程可以通过社区计划轻松实施。 与公共健康相关：65岁以上的人成为美国最大的年龄段，这项研究与全国近八分之一的人有关。这项研究的成功完成将表明，持续从事更多种类的不同运动技能可以防止神经和运动在衰老时衰退，这一结果可以直接转化为临床和社区。保持认知和行动能力与公共健康特别相关，因为它们是功能活动的基本组成部分，而功能活动是老年人生活质量的核心。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): With an ever-growing life expectancy and senior population, costs for healthcare and assisted living for the elderly will place an unsustainable burden on the US economy as the elderly lose their functional mobility. The cost of assisted living for seniors in the US is projected to reach $248 billion by 2012. At the core of the loss of functional mobility are declines in cognitive and motor function, represented by increased intra-individual variability known as greater behavioral inconsistency. Increased neural noise is the higher occurrence of random brain activity causing greater behavioral inconsistency in the elderly. As such, scientists are continuing to seek means of attenuating age-related increases in behavioral inconsistency. Currently, the factors that attenuate these declines remain unknown, presenting a barrier to the development of targeted interventions for the clinic and community. The advantage of animal models become in studies of aging is their shorter lifespan that allows the scientist to obtain outcome data more rapidly. Yet, behavioral inconsistency has not been studied in animal models. Recent theorizations propose that animals housed in enriched experimental environments exhibit smaller age-related increases in neural noise during the aging process. "Enriched" animals that are housed in groups have the opportunity for social interaction and an environment that is varied over the experimental period with toys and food locations being changed frequently. However, the specific source of the benefits of the environment is still being debated, as enriched environments positively affect aging in a manner that cannot be replicated by socialization or exercise alone. It is thus a logical question to ask whether the increased opportunity to engage in different movement patterns provides the positive effects of enriched environments. Our specific aim is to test the hypothesis that greater variance in the movement patterns that one engages in is a primary source of the benefits of environmental enrichment. We will connect the effects of aging on variability in neural and motor activity with that of variety of motor activities afforded by the environment. This study will be conducted by an interdisciplinary research team from Kinesiology, Physics, and Neuroscience to examine the complex scientific problem of aging. Our study has the potential to achieve a significant scientific breakthrough due to its many innovations. The results would show that a key component to healthy aging is to continually acquire new movement skills throughout the lifespan rather than physical activity alone. Interventions that seek to slow age-related declines in cognition and action have focused primarily on maintaining existing function. Successful completion of this study would provide the evidence-base for continually introducing new movement skills to seniors, a process that could be easily implemented through community programs. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: With people over 65 years becoming proportionally the largest age bracket in America, this study is relevant to nearly an eighth of the entire nation. Successful completion of this study will show that continually engaging in a greater variety of different movement skills has a protective effect against neural and motor declines in aging, a result that can be directly translated to clinic and community. Maintaining cognitive and movement capabilities are especially relevant to public health, as they are essential components of functional mobility, which lies at the core of quality of life in the elderly.