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，将事件的特征关联(绑定)到复杂记忆(编码)的过程，随着时间的推移巩固它们，并在以后对它们进行唤醒和评估。在正常衰老的后果中，最令人痛苦的是感觉无法接触到情景记忆的特定细节。考虑一下，不记得你是否已经支付了账单，或者是否已经通知了你的处方续签，或者只是想过这样做。这些问题比阿尔茨海默氏症等更严重的缺陷更常见；随着婴儿潮一代人口的老龄化，更多的人将经历这些问题。我们的研究旨在了解调节情景记忆的过程，以及这些过程在正常衰老过程中的破坏方式。前额叶皮质(PFC)在编码日常事件和随后的记忆中起着关键作用。我们提出，右PFC从属于相对启发式的过程，而左PFC(或左右同时)从属于更系统的过程。我们建议检验这一假说，即与年龄相关的情景记忆下降涉及PFC功能障碍，这种功能障碍比右侧PFC更能扰乱通常由左侧PFC辅助的过程，或左侧和右侧PFC之间的相互作用。我们的研究是在源头监测框架(SMF)的指导下进行的，该框架为总结当前对这些过程的理解提供了一个不断发展的组织结构，并为产生新的假设奠定了基础。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。这项提案要求资金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。该项目有三个主要目标：(1)进一步澄清从属于情节记忆的认知过程的性质，并明确它们可能(和不可能)受到衰老影响的方式；(2)进一步发展评估记忆的质量特征和主观记忆经验模型的方法，并评估主观记忆经验随年龄的变化；(3)确定来源监测过程的神经基础，并明确受衰老影响最大的神经基础。设计用于识别和量化情景记忆缺陷的评估程序，将其与其他指标(如神经心理测试)相关联，并开发处理此类缺陷的补救技术，将受益于对来源监测过程以及这些过程及其神经底物随年龄的变化的更具体的表征。

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.