Ageing Cognition And Neuroscience Envejecimiento Cognici N Y Neurociencia

La ciencia conductual, la ciencia cognitiva y la neurociencia están realizando grandes progresos en la comprensión de los cambios cognitivos que se producen durante el proceso de envejecimiento. Especialistas de distintos campos, tales como la psicología conductual y cognitiva y las neurociencias, que están investigando en un número de áreas diferentes, fueron invitados a participar en este volumen. Estas áreas incluyen el estudio de los mecanismos básicos que explican el declive cognitivo asociado a la edad, los procesos mentales (percepción, atención, memoria, razonamiento y lenguaje), los cambios neurológicos que ocurren a nivel molecular y celular que influyen en el funcionamiento mental durante el ciclo vital, los cambios cerebrales y conductuales asociados a la edad que se producen en las enfermedades neurodegenerativas, tales como la enfermedad de Alzheimer, métodos experimentales y clínicos e intervenciones sociales.

Developed nations are experiencing enormous increases in the number of elderly people in the population. Ageing is a universal complex multifaceted process that profoundly affects mind and brain of all individuals. Important discoveries are being made at different levels of research on cognitive aging: from the molecular/genetic level, to the cell, the network, and the processing of information at the cognitive level. The aim of this special issue is to examine new breakthroughs of the aging mind and brain and how to use this knowledge to promote interdisciplinary research in normal and pathological aging.

A rapidly growing body of research has consituted a new discipline that may be called cognitive neuroscience of aging. This book offers an introduction to the topic, useful to both professionals & students in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology & neurology.

Integrates a neuroscience approach to study aging. In addition to covering standard cognitive functions, it incorporates socioemotional abilities.

Until very recently, our knowledge about the neural basis of cognitive aging was based on two disciplines that had very little contact with each other. Whereas the neuroscience of aging investigated the effects of aging on the brain independently of age-related changes in cognition, the cognitive psychology of aging investigated the effects of aging on cognition independently of age-related changes in the brain. The lack of communication between these two disciplines is currently being addressed by an increasing number of studies that focus on the relationships between cognitive aging and cerebral aging. This rapidly growing body of research has come to constitute a new discipline, which may be called cognitive neuroscience of aging. The goal of Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging is to introduce the reader to this new discipline at a level that is useful to both professionals and students in the domains of cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, neurology, and other, related areas. This book is divided into four main sections. The first section describes noninvasive measures of cerebral aging, including structural (e.g., volumetric MRI), chemical (e.g., dopamine PET), electrophysiological (e.g., ERPs), and hemodynamic (e.g., fMRI), and discusses how they can be linked to behavioral measures of cognitive aging. The second section reviews evidence for the effects of aging on neural activity during different cognitive functions, including perception and attention, imagery, working memory, long-term memory, and prospective memory. The third section focuses on clinical and applied topics, such as the distinction between healthy aging and Alzheimers disease and the use of cognitive training to ameliorate age-related cognitive decline. The last section describes theories that relate cognitive and cerebral aging, including models accounting for functional neuroimaging evidence and models supported by computer simulations. Taken together, the chapters in this volume provide the first unified and comprehensive overview of the new discipline of cognitive neuroscience of aging.

With an ever increasing population of aging people in the western world, it is more crucial than ever that we try to understand how and why cognitive competence breaks down with advancing age; why do some people follow normal patterns of cognitive change, while others follow a path of progressive decline, with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. What can be done to prevent cognitive decline - or to avoid neurodegenerative diseases? The answers, if they come, will not emerge from research within one discipline, but from work being done across a range of scientific and medical specialities. This volume brings together leading experts from a range of fields studying cognitive aging, including neuroscience, pharmacology, health, genetics, sensory biology, and epidemiology. Unlike other books in this area, this book is more about 'new frontiers' than past research and accomplishments. Recently cognitive aging research has taken several new directions, linking with, and benefiting from, rapid technological and theoretical advances in these neighbouring disciplines. This book provides unique interdisciplinary coverage of the topic. With each chapter including commentaries from specialists in related fields, the book provides an integrative study of the topic. For those within the fields of psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and geriatrics, this volume will make an important contribution in furthering our understanding of a problem that affects us all.

Two noted researchers explain scientific evidence that shows why certain experiential and lifestyle factors may promote and maintain cognitive vitality in older adults. Although our physical abilities clearly decline as we age, cognitive decline in healthy old age is neither universal nor inevitable. In Nurturing the Older Brain, Pamela Greenwood and Raja Parasuraman show that scientific research does not support the popular notion of the inexorable and progressive effects of cognitive aging in all older adults. They report that many adults maintain a high level of cognitive function into old age and that certain experiential and lifestyle factors--including education, exercise, diet, and opportunities for new learning--contribute to the preservation of cognitive abilities. Many popular accounts draw similar conclusions and give similar lifestyle advice but lack supporting scientific evidence. Greenwood and Parasuraman offer a comprehensive review of research on cognitive and brain aging. They show that even the aged brain remains capable of plasticity--the ability to adapt to and benefit from experience--and they summarize evidence that brain plasticity is heightened by certain types of cognitive training, by aerobic exercise, and by certain diets. They also report on the somewhat controversial use of estrogen and cognition-enhancing drugs, on environmental adaptations (including "virtual assistants") that help older adults "age in place," and on genetic factors in cognitive aging. The past twenty years of research points to ways that older adults can lead rich and cognitively vital lives. As millions of baby boomers head toward old age, Greenwood and Parasuraman's accessible book could not be more timely.

The rapid growth in the numbers of older people worldwide has led to an equally rapid growth in research on the changes across age in cognitive function, including the processes of moment to moment cognition known as working memory. This book brings together international research leaders who address major questions about how age affects working memory: Why is working memory function much better preserved in some people than others? In all healthy adults, which aspects of working memory are retained in later years and which aspects start declining in early adulthood? Can cognitive training help slow cognitive decline with age? How are changes in brain structures, connectivity and activation patterns related to important changes in working memory function? Impairments of cognition, and particularly of working memory, can be major barriers to independent living. The chapters of this book dispel some popular myths about cognitive ageing, while presenting the state of the science on how and why working memory functions as it does throughout the adult lifespan. Working Memory and Aging is the first volume to provide an overview of the burgeoning literature on changes in working memory function across healthy and pathological ageing, and it will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in psychology and related subject areas concerned with the effects of human ageing, including several areas of medicine.