Social Memory with Age: Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms

描述(由申请人提供)：这项建议使用行为和神经成像研究来研究与年龄相关的社会情绪记忆的变化。以前的行为研究提供了一些证据，证明对具有社会情感意义的有意义的信息具有年龄不变的记忆，而对于其他类型的信息，与年龄相关的长期记忆普遍下降的模式形成对比。然而，到目前为止，人们对支持这些效应的认知机制以及社会情绪信息如何不受认知老化文献中列出的认知衰退的影响知之甚少。我们假设，社会情绪信息支持相对年龄相当的对社会信息的一般记忆，例如记住某件事是“好的”还是“坏的”。这种类型的记忆将由杏仁核和前额叶腹内侧皮质的自动参与来支持。在年轻人中，这些区域对社会情绪信息的反应与任务需求无关，我们预测它们支持有助于一般记忆的年龄不变的自动过程。相反，我们认为，与一般记忆相比，对情节细节的特定记忆，如对角色总体印象做出贡献的行为，将随着年龄的增长而不成比例地受损。我们预测，与年轻人相比，老年人将编码不那么详细的社会情感信息，这揭示了记忆中赋予社会信息的特权地位的局限性。对特定细节的记忆需要由内侧和腹外侧额叶皮质提供支持的受控过程，这些过程将受到衰老的影响。这项拟议的研究将极大地促进以下方面的理解：1)激发社会情绪条件如何改善老年人的记忆；2)社会情绪条件如何限制它们对记忆的贡献；3)衰老如何影响参与社会信息处理的神经区域的反应；以及4)支持社会记忆的神经区域如何与辅助控制处理的神经区域相互作用。到目前为止，很少有研究衰老对涉及社会情绪信息处理的神经区域的影响的神经成像研究，主要集中在对情绪信息的神经反应上。我们的研究采用了一种新的方法，关注与性格有关的社会、人际信息的神经反应，这与以前使用的唤醒或公开的情绪刺激不同。总而言之，这些研究的结果将提供对支持记忆功能随年龄增长的有效方法的洞察，以及促进对大脑稳定性和变化随年龄变化的相对模式如何有助于社会记忆的理解。 与公共健康相关：增加我们对社会情绪信息如何随着年龄的增长而有助于记忆的理解，将为如何提高老年人的记忆和决策的有效性提供见解。这项建议调查了社会情感信息增强记忆和利用神经资源的方式，但也探索了这些好处的局限性。虽然一般记忆及其神经关联可能会随着年龄的增长相对保存下来，但特定记忆的崩溃可能会让老年人更容易受到欺骗和欺骗。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal investigates age-related changes in socioemotional memory using behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Previous behavioral studies provide some evidence of age-invariant memory for meaningful information with socioemotional significance, in contrast to the pattern of pervasive age-related declines in long-term memory for other types of information. However, very little is known thus far about the cognitive mechanisms that support these effects and how socioemotional information is immune to the cognitive declines catalogued in much of the cognitive aging literature. We posit that socioemotional information supports relatively age-equivalent general memory for social information, such as remembering whether something is "good" or "bad". This type of memory will be supported by the automatic engagement of the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. In young adults, these regions respond to socioemotional information regardless of the task demands, and we predict that they support age-invariant automatic processes that contribute to general memory. In contrast, we propose that specific memory for the details of episodes, such as the behaviors that contribute to an overall impression of character, will be disproportionately impaired with age, relative to general memory. We predict that older adults will encode less detailed socioemotional information than young adults, revealing limitations to the privileged status afforded social information in memory. Memory for specific details will require controlled processes, subserved by medial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and these processes will be affected by aging. The proposed studies will substantially advance the understanding of: 1) how motivating socioemotional conditions can improve older adults' memory, 2) how socioemotional conditions are limited in the ways that they contribute to memory, 3) how aging affects the response of neural regions that contribute to the processing of social information, and 4) how the neural regions supporting social memory interact with neural regions that subserve controlled processing. The few neuroimaging studies to date to investigate the effects of aging on neural regions implicated in socioemotional information processing focus largely on the neural response to emotional information. Our studies take a novel approach by focusing on the neural response to social, interpersonal information regarding character, which differs from the arousing, or overtly emotional, stimuli that have been employed previously. In sum, the results from these studies will provide insights into effective ways to support memory function with age, as well as advance understanding of how the relative patterns of stability and change in the brain with age contribute to social memory. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Increasing our understanding of how socioemotional information contributes to memory with age will provide insights into how to improve the effectiveness of older adults' memory and decision making. This proposal investigates the ways in which socioemotional information enhances memory and engages neural resources, but also explores the limitations to these benefits. While general memory and its neural correlates may be relatively preserved with age, breakdowns in specific memory could leave older adults vulnerable to fraud and deception.