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Development and Decline of Memory Functions in Normal, Pathological and Healthy Successful Aging

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Abstract

Many neuroimaging studies of age-related memory decline interpret resultant differences in brain activation patterns in the elderly as reflecting a type of compensatory response or regression to a simpler state of brain organization. Here we review a series of our own studies which lead us to an alternative interpretation, and highlights a couple of potential confounds in the aging literature that may act to increase the variability of results within age groups and across laboratories. From our perspective, level of cognitive functioning achieved by a group of elderly is largely determined by the health of individuals within this group. Individuals with a history of hypertension, for example, are likely to have multiple white matter insults which compromise cognitive functioning, independent of aging processes. The health of the elderly group has not been well-documented in most previous studies and elderly participants are rarely excluded, or placed into a separate group, due to health-related problems. In addition, recent results show that white matter tracts within the frontal and temporal lobes, regions critical for higher cognitive functions, continue to mature well into the 4th decade of life. This suggests that a young age group may not be the best control group for understanding aging effects on the brain since development is ongoing within this age range. Therefore, we have added a middle-age group to our studies in order to better understand normal development across the lifespan as well as effects of pathology on cognitive functioning in the aging brain.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NIH grants R01 AG029495, R01 AG020302, and CTSC Pilot Project NCRR 1UL1RR031977 to UNM HSC, and P20 RR021938 to MRN. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes on Aging or the National Institutes of Health. This work was also supported in part by a VA Merit Review grant, by the Department of Energy under Award Number DE-FG02-99ER62764 to the Mind Research Network, the Radiology Department at UNM SOM, and the Research Service at the New Mexico VA Health Care System. The authors wish to thank Reyaad Hayek, Blaine Hart, Clifford Qualls, Jennifer Bryant, Christopher Donahue, Megan Schendel, Laura Lundy, Jamie MacArthur, and Rebecca Montaño for their help with neuroradiological reports, statistics, data acquisition and analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, MSC10 5530, 1 University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM, 87131-0001, USA

    C. J. Aine & L. Sanfratello

  2. Department of Neurology, 1 University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    J. C. Adair

  3. Department of Internal Medicine, 1 University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    J. E. Knoefel

  4. The Mind Research Network, 1101 Yale Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM, 87106, USA

    A. Caprihan & J. M. Stephen

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Correspondence to C. J. Aine.

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This is one of several papers published together in Brain Topography on the “Special Issue: Brain Imaging across the Lifespan”.

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Aine, C.J., Sanfratello, L., Adair, J.C. et al. Development and Decline of Memory Functions in Normal, Pathological and Healthy Successful Aging. Brain Topogr 24, 323–339 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-011-0178-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-011-0178-x

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