The Impact of Aging on the Neural and Behavioral Bases of Empathy

项目概要/摘要：研究项目（C） 到2060年，预计65岁及以上的成年人将占美国人口的24%。因此，我们认为， 影响老年人认知和情绪健康的因素值得关注。特别 重要的是年龄相关的特定亚型的同理心下降。这些下降极大地影响了公众 健康，因为减少同情心与许多心理健康状况有关，包括 增加抑郁和孤独。值得注意的是，减少同情不仅影响健康的老年人， 成年人，但似乎也选择性地影响特定的年龄相关的神经系统疾病，如额， 颞叶痴呆症和阿尔茨海默病因此，表征与年龄相关的潜在机制 共情亚型的下降可以提供关键信息，以制定有针对性的干预措施， 对与衰老有关的疾病以及受低血糖影响的许多其他患者群体产生重大影响。 移情（例如，自闭症、精神分裂症、创伤性脑损伤）。 目前的研究表明，有两种亚型的同理心（即，认知和情感）， 健康的老年人表现出共情的认知亚型的显著下降（即，理解他人的 思想和感情），在情感子类型中具有保留或增强的功能（即，同情心 对于其他人）。这些认知同理心的下降与与大脑中与之相关的区域的神经变化有关。 思考他人的精神状态，例如背内侧前额叶皮层。此外，有证据表明， 这表明认知同理心的下降可能至少部分归因于与年龄相关的缺陷， 其他认知功能，如执行功能和记忆。然而，对神经基础知之甚少 在老年人中保留情感同理心，以及神经和行为功能的轨迹， 每一种共情亚型都从未在成年人的一生中被研究过。此外，虽然以前 研究集中在与实足年龄的关系上，他们没有测量与生物学的联系。 年龄，这已被证明是一个更准确的标记的生理影响的寿命压力 并预测疾病风险和全因死亡率。为了弥补这些知识差距，本提案将 调查年龄相关的变化轨迹，在认知和情感亚型的同理心，通过 行为和功能神经影像学方法。参与者将包括116名年龄不等的健康成年人 25-75岁。黄金标准的认知和情感同理心任务将被用来探测年龄- 相关的行为变化，功能性MRI将用于评估神经变化，在这两个内在网络 和基于任务的激活。将使用时间顺序和生物学方法评估老化 老化（基于DNA甲基化）度量，以提供老化过程的更精确量化。的 这一建议的结果将为制定旨在针对具体目标的干预措施奠定基础。 共情的亚型，对共情减少的临床人群具有广泛的影响。

Project Summary/Abstract: Research Project (C) By 2060, adults 65 years of age and older are predicted to make up 24% of the U.S. population. Therefore, factors that impact older adults’ cognitive and emotional health are of significant concern. Of particular importance are age-related declines in specific subtypes of empathy. These declines greatly impact public health because reduced empathy has been associated with numerous mental health conditions, including increased depression and loneliness. It is important to note that reduced empathy not only affects healthy older adults, but also appears to be selectively affected in specific age-related neurological disorders such as fronto- temporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, characterizing the mechanisms underlying age-related declines in the subtypes of empathy could provide key information to develop targeted interventions that could have a major impact on aging-related diseases, as well as the many other patient populations affected by low empathy (e.g., autism, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury). Current research suggests that there are two subtypes of empathy (i.e., cognitive and emotional) and that healthy older adults show significant declines in the cognitive subtype of empathy (i.e., understanding others’ thoughts and feelings), with preserved or enhanced function in the emotional subtype (i.e., feeling compassion for others). These declines in cognitive empathy have been linked to neural changes in regions associated with thinking about others’ mental states, such as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, there is evidence suggesting that declines in cognitive empathy may be at least partially attributable to age-related deficits in other cognitive functions, such as executive function and memory. However, little is known on the neural bases of preserved emotional empathy in older adults, and the trajectory of neural and behavioral function underlying each empathy subtype has never been examined across the adult lifespan. Furthermore, while previous studies have focused on relationships with chronological age, they have not measured the link to biological age, which has been shown to be a more accurate marker of the physiological impacts of lifespan stressors and is predictive of disease risk and all-cause mortality. To address these gaps in knowledge, this proposal will investigate the trajectory of age-related changes in the cognitive and emotional subtypes of empathy through behavioral and functional neuroimaging methods. Participants will include 116 healthy adults ranging in age from 25-75 years of age. Gold standard cognitive and emotional empathy tasks will be used to probe age- related behavioral changes, and functional MRI will be used to assess neural changes, in both intrinsic networks and task-based activation during empathy tasks. Aging will be assessed using both chronological and biological aging (based on DNA methylation) metrics to provide a more precise quantification of the aging process. The results of this proposal will lay the groundwork for the development of interventions designed to target specific subtypes of empathy, with widespread implications for the clinical populations experiencing reduced empathy.