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

描述（由申请人提供）：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费用将给美国经济带来不可持续的负担，因为老年人失去了功能活动能力。到2012年，美国老年人的辅助生活费用预计将达到2480亿美元。功能活动能力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，即更大的行为不一致。在老年人中，增加的神经噪声是随机大脑活动的更高发生率，导致更大的行为不一致。正因为如此，科学家们仍在继续寻找方法来减轻与年龄相关的行为不一致的增加。目前，减少这些下降的因素仍然未知，为诊所和社区制定有针对性的干预措施带来了障碍。动物模型在衰老研究中的优势在于它们的寿命较短，这使得科学家能够更快地获得结果数据。然而，行为不一致尚未在动物模型中进行研究。最近的理论提出，在丰富的实验环境中饲养的动物在衰老过程中表现出较小的与年龄相关的神经噪声增长。“丰富”的动物被安置在群体中，有机会进行社会互动，并且在实验期间，环境会不断变化，玩具和食物的位置也会经常改变。然而，环境益处的具体来源仍在争论中，因为丰富的环境以一种不能仅通过社会化或锻炼来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提供了丰富环境的积极影响。我们的具体目标是验证这样一个假设，即一个人从事的运动模式的更大差异是环境丰富的主要来源。我们将把衰老对神经和运动活动可变性的影响与环境所提供的各种运动活动的影响联系起来。这项研究将由一个来自运动机能学、物理学和神经科学的跨学科研究小组进行，以研究衰老的复杂科学问题。我们的研究有可能实现重大的科学突破，因为它有许多创新。研究结果表明，健康老龄化的一个关键因素是在整个生命周期中不断获得新的运动技能，而不仅仅是体育锻炼。寻求减缓与年龄相关的认知和行动衰退的干预措施主要集中在维持现有功能上。这项研究的成功完成将为不断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项目轻松实施。

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.