Effects of Aging on Memory for Source of Information

描述（由申请人提供）：我们的主要目标是了解情景记忆背后的认知过程，将事件特征关联（绑定）到复杂记忆（编码）中的过程，随着时间的推移巩固它们，并在以后恢复和评估它们。在正常衰老的后果中，最令人痛苦的是失去对情节记忆特定细节的访问。考虑不记得你是否已经支付了账单或要求你的处方更新或只是想到这样做。这些问题比更严重的缺陷更常见，如阿尔茨海默氏症;随着婴儿潮一代人口的老龄化，更大比例的人口将经历这些问题。我们的研究旨在了解介导情景记忆的过程，以及这些过程在正常衰老中的分解方式。前额叶皮层（PFC）在编码日常事件和随后的记忆中起着关键作用。我们已经提出，右PFC subserves相对启发式的过程，左PFC（或左和右一起）subserves更系统的过程。我们提出了一个假设，即与年龄相关的情景记忆减退涉及PFC功能障碍，这种功能障碍破坏了通常由左PFC或左PFC和右PFC之间的相互作用所支持的过程，而不是由右PFC所支持的过程。它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，并为产生新的假设提供了基础。这种方法有助于澄清记忆中的基本理论问题，包括与年龄相关的变化的性质。该提案要求提供资金，以继续我们对这些问题的认知/行为和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究。本研究的主要目的有三：（1）进一步阐明情景记忆中认知过程的本质及其作用方式（2）进一步开发评估记忆的质量特征和记忆的主观经验模型的方法，并评估主观经验随年龄的变化;以及（3）识别源监测过程的神经基础，并指定受老化影响最大的神经基础。设计评估程序来识别和量化情景记忆缺陷，将它们与其他指标（如神经心理学测试）相关联，并开发治疗技术来处理这些缺陷，将受益于更具体的源监测过程和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.