Effects of Aging on Memory for Source of Information

描述（由申请人提供）：我们的主要目标是理解情景记忆的认知过程，这一过程将事件的特征与复杂的记忆（编码）联系起来，随着时间的推移巩固它们，并在之后恢复和评估它们。在正常衰老的后果中，最令人痛苦的是失去对情景记忆的具体细节的访问。想想看，如果你记不起你是否已经付过账单，或者你是否打电话给你的处方更新，或者只是想这么做。这些问题比阿尔茨海默氏症等更严重的缺陷更常见；随着婴儿潮一代的老龄化，更大比例的人口将经历这些。我们的研究旨在理解情景记忆的中介过程，以及这些过程在正常衰老过程中分解的方式。前额叶皮层（PFC）在日常事件的编码和随后的记忆中起着关键作用。我们已经提出，右侧PFC支持相对启发式的过程，而左侧PFC（或左右一起）支持更系统化的过程。我们建议验证以下假设，即与年龄相关的情景记忆衰退涉及PFC功能障碍，这种功能障碍破坏了通常由左PFC负责的过程，或左右PFC之间的相互作用，而不是由右PFC负责的过程。我们的研究以源监测框架（SMF）为指导，该框架提供了一个不断发展的组织结构，用于总结当前对这些过程的理解，并为产生新假设提供基础。这种方法有助于澄清记忆的基本理论问题，包括与年龄相关的变化的本质。本提案要求资金继续我们在这些问题上的认知/行为和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究。该项目有三个主要目标：(1)进一步阐明情景记忆的认知过程的本质，并明确它们可能（或不可能）受到年龄影响的方式；(2)进一步发展记忆的定性特征评估方法和记忆的主观经验模型，并评估主观经验随年龄的变化；(3)识别源监测过程的神经基础，明确受老化影响最大的过程。设计评估程序以识别和量化情景记忆缺陷，将其与其他指标（如神经心理学测试）相关联，并开发处理此类缺陷的补救技术，将受益于对源监测过程的更具体描述以及这些过程及其神经基质随年龄的变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our primary goal is understanding the cognitive processes underlying episodic memory, processes that associate (bind) features of events into complex memories (encoding), consolidate them over time, and revive and evaluate them later. Among the consequences of normal aging, one of the most distressing is the sense of losing access to specific details of episodic memories. Consider not being able to remember whether you already paid a bill or called in your prescription renewal or only thought about doing so. These problems are more common than more severe deficits, such as Alzheimer's Dementia; an even larger percentage of the population will experience these as the baby boomer population ages. Our research is directed at understanding the processes mediating episodic memory, and the ways that these processes break down in normal aging. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a critical role in encoding daily events and subsequent memory for them. We have proposed that right PFC subserves relatively heuristic processes and that left PFC (or left and right together) subserves more systematic processes. We propose to test the hypothesis that age-related decrements in episodic memory involve PFC dysfunction that disrupts processes typically subserved by left PFC, or the interaction between left and right PFC, more than those subserved by right PFC. Our research is guided by the source monitoring framework (SMF), which provides an evolving organizational structure for summarizing current understanding of these processes and a basis for generating new hypotheses. This approach has helped clarify fundamental theoretical issues in memory, including the nature of age-related changes. This proposal requests funds to continue our cognitive/behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research on these issues. The project has three main goals: (1) To further clarify the nature of cognitive processes subserving episodic memory and to specify the ways they are (and are not) likely to be affected by aging; (2) To further develop methods for assessing the qualitative characteristics of memories and models of the subjective experience of remembering, and to assess changes in subjective experience with age; and (3) To identify the neural bases of source monitoring processes and specify those most affected by aging. Devising assessment procedures for identifying and quantifying episodic memory deficits, correlating them with other indices (such as neuropsychological tests), and developing remedial techniques for dealing with such deficits, will benefit from a more specific characterization of source monitoring processes and changes in those processes and their neural substrates with age.