scholarly journals Promoting Successful Cognitive Aging: A Ten-Year Update

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Taylor J. Krivanek ◽  
Seth A. Gale ◽  
Brittany M. McFeeley ◽  
Casey M. Nicastri ◽  
Kirk R. Daffner

A decade has passed since we published a comprehensive review in this journal addressing the topic of promoting successful cognitive aging, making this a good time to take stock of the field. Because there have been limited large-scale, randomized controlled trials, especially following individuals from middle age to late life, some experts have questioned whether recommendations can be legitimately offered about reducing the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Despite uncertainties, clinicians often need to at least make provisional recommendations to patients based on the highest quality data available. Converging lines of evidence from epidemiological/cohort studies, animal/basic science studies, human proof-of-concept studies, and human intervention studies can provide guidance, highlighting strategies for enhancing cognitive reserve and preventing loss of cognitive capacity. Many of the suggestions made in 2010 have been supported by additional research. Importantly, there is a growing consensus among major health organizations about recommendations to mitigate cognitive decline and promote healthy cognitive aging. Regular physical activity and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors have been supported by all of these organizations. Most organizations have also embraced cognitively stimulating activities, a heart-healthy diet, smoking cessation, and countering metabolic syndrome. Other behaviors like regular social engagement, limiting alcohol use, stress management, getting adequate sleep, avoiding anticholinergic medications, addressing sensory deficits, and protecting the brain against physical and toxic damage also have been endorsed, although less consistently. In this update, we review the evidence for each of these recommendations and offer practical advice about behavior-change techniques to help patients adopt brain-healthy behaviors.

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (9) ◽  
pp. 1029-1041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith A. Shafto ◽  
Richard N. Henson ◽  
Fiona E. Matthews ◽  
Jason R. Taylor ◽  
Tina Emery ◽  
...  

Objective: Studies of “healthy” cognitive aging often focus on a limited set of measures that decline with age. The current study argues that defining and supporting healthy cognition requires understanding diverse cognitive performance across the lifespan. Method: Data from the Cambridge Centre for Aging and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) cohort was examined across a range of cognitive domains. Performance was related to lifestyle including education, social engagement, and enrichment activities. Results: Results indicate variable relationships between cognition and age (positive, negative, or no relationship). Principal components analysis indicated maintained cognitive diversity across the adult lifespan, and that cognition–lifestyle relationships differed by age and domain. Discussion: Our findings support a view of normal cognitive aging as a lifelong developmental process with diverse relationships between cognition, lifestyle, and age. This reinforces the need for large-scale studies of cognitive aging to include a wider range of both ages and cognitive tasks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Letícia Sanguinetti Czepielewski ◽  
Luz Maria Alliende ◽  
Carmen Paz Castañeda ◽  
Mariana Castro ◽  
Salvador M. Guinjoan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Cognition heavily relies on social determinants and genetic background. Latin America comprises approximately 8% of the global population and faces unique challenges, many derived from specific demographic and socioeconomic variables, such as violence and inequality. While such factors have been described to influence mental health outcomes, no large-scale studies with Latin American population have been carried out. Therefore, we aim to describe the cognitive performance of a representative sample of Latin American individuals with schizophrenia and its relationship to clinical factors. Additionally, we aim to investigate how socioeconomic status (SES) relates to cognitive performance in patients and controls. Methods We included 1175 participants from five Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico): 864 individuals with schizophrenia and 311 unaffected subjects. All participants were part of projects that included cognitive evaluation with MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery and clinical assessments. Results Patients showed worse cognitive performance than controls across all domains. Age and diagnosis were independent predictors, indicating similar trajectories of cognitive aging for both patients and controls. The SES factors of education, parental education, and income were more related to cognition in patients than in controls. Cognition was also influenced by symptomatology. Conclusions Patients did not show evidence of accelerated cognitive aging; however, they were most impacted by a lower SES suggestive of deprived environment than controls. These findings highlight the vulnerability of cognitive capacity in individuals with psychosis in face of demographic and socioeconomic factors in low- and middle-income countries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 377-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Baas ◽  
Michiel Schotten ◽  
Andrew Plume ◽  
Grégoire Côté ◽  
Reza Karimi

Scopus is among the largest curated abstract and citation databases, with a wide global and regional coverage of scientific journals, conference proceedings, and books, while ensuring only the highest quality data are indexed through rigorous content selection and re-evaluation by an independent Content Selection and Advisory Board. Additionally, extensive quality assurance processes continuously monitor and improve all data elements in Scopus. Besides enriched metadata records of scientific articles, Scopus offers comprehensive author and institution profiles, obtained from advanced profiling algorithms and manual curation, ensuring high precision and recall. The trustworthiness of Scopus has led to its use as bibliometric data source for large-scale analyses in research assessments, research landscape studies, science policy evaluations, and university rankings. Scopus data have been offered for free for selected studies by the academic research community, such as through application programming interfaces, which have led to many publications employing Scopus data to investigate topics such as researcher mobility, network visualizations, and spatial bibliometrics. In June 2019, the International Center for the Study of Research was launched, with an advisory board consisting of bibliometricians, aiming to work with the scientometric research community and offering a virtual laboratory where researchers will be able to utilize Scopus data.


Author(s):  
Yvonne Rogalski ◽  
Muriel Quintana

The population of older adults is rapidly increasing, as is the number and type of products and interventions proposed to prevent or reduce the risk of age-related cognitive decline. Advocacy and prevention are part of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA’s) scope of practice documents, and speech-language pathologists must have basic awareness of the evidence contributing to healthy cognitive aging. In this article, we provide a brief overview outlining the evidence on activity engagement and its effects on cognition in older adults. We explore the current evidence around the activities of eating and drinking with a discussion on the potential benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, polyphenols, alcohol, and coffee. We investigate the evidence on the hypothesized neuroprotective effects of social activity, the evidence on computerized cognitive training, and the emerging behavioral and neuroimaging evidence on physical activity. We conclude that actively aging using a combination of several strategies may be our best line of defense against cognitive decline.


2020 ◽  
pp. 27-35
Author(s):  
Alexander Allakhverdyan

Numerous studies by Russian scientists and historians of science are devoted to the state science policy in the USSR and its well-known achievements, but not enough attention is paid to the negative, socially repressed aspects of the Soviet science policy. Repressions became one of the main components of the state's scientific and personnel policy in the Stalinist era. The systemic analysis of the development of Soviet science declared in the scientific literature, limited only by its indisputably outstanding achievements, without under-standing the origins, causes and mechanisms of the repressed state apparatus that operated in the same period, sharply reduces the overall picture of the reliability of the study of Soviet science. The purpose of the study is to comprehend the diverse and dramatic practice of state repression in the system of Soviet science, because in the world history of science no other developed country has experienced such large-scale and tragic events in the functioning of the scientific society.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 343-343
Author(s):  
Abbey Hamlin ◽  
A Zarina Kraal ◽  
Laura Zahodne

Abstract Social engagement may confer cognitive benefits in older adulthood, but studies have typically been restricted to largely non-Hispanic White (NHW) samples. Levels of social engagement vary across race such that NHW report larger social networks, more frequent participation in social activities, and greater social support than non-Hispanic Blacks (NHB). Associations between social engagement and cognition may also vary by race, but research is sparse. The current cross-sectional study examined associations between different aspects of social engagement and episodic memory performance, as well as interactions between social engagement and race among NHB and NHW participants in the Michigan Cognitive Aging Project (N = 247; 48.4% NHB; age = 64.19 ± 2.92). Social engagement (network size, activities, support) was self-reported. Episodic memory was a z-score composite of immediate, delayed, and recognition trials of a list-learning task. Separate hierarchical linear regression models quantified interactions between race and each of the three social engagement variables on episodic memory, controlling for sociodemographics, depressive symptoms, and health conditions. Results showed a main effect of more frequent social activity on better episodic memory, as well as an interaction between race and social support indicating a significant positive association in NHB but not NHW. These preliminary findings suggest that participating in social activities may be equally beneficial for episodic memory across NHB and NHW older adults and that social support may be particularly beneficial for NHB. Future research is needed to determine the potential applications of these results in reducing cognitive inequalities through the development of culturally-relevant interventions.


Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 1611
Author(s):  
Nur Fathiah Abdul Abdul Sani ◽  
Ahmad Imran Zaydi Amir Amir Hamzah ◽  
Zulzikry Hafiz Abu Abu Bakar ◽  
Yasmin Anum Mohd Mohd Yusof ◽  
Suzana Makpol ◽  
...  

The mechanism of cognitive aging at the molecular level is complex and not well understood. Growing evidence suggests that cognitive differences might also be caused by ethnicity. Thus, this study aims to determine the gene expression changes associated with age-related cognitive decline among Malay adults in Malaysia. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 160 healthy Malay subjects, aged between 28 and 79, and recruited around Selangor and Klang Valley, Malaysia. Gene expression analysis was performed using a HumanHT-12v4.0 Expression BeadChip microarray kit. The top 20 differentially expressed genes at p < 0.05 and fold change (FC) = 1.2 showed that PAFAH1B3, HIST1H1E, KCNA3, TM7SF2, RGS1, and TGFBRAP1 were regulated with increased age. The gene set analysis suggests that the Malay adult’s susceptibility to developing age-related cognitive decline might be due to the changes in gene expression patterns associated with inflammation, signal transduction, and metabolic pathway in the genetic network. It may, perhaps, have important implications for finding a biomarker for cognitive decline and offer molecular targets to achieve successful aging, mainly in the Malay population in Malaysia.


2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 442-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Espeseth ◽  
Andrea Christoforou ◽  
Astri J. Lundervold ◽  
Vidar M. Steen ◽  
Stephanie Le Hellard ◽  
...  

Data collection for the Norwegian Cognitive NeuroGenetics sample (NCNG) was initiated in 2003 with a research grant (to Ivar Reinvang) to study cognitive aging, brain function, and genetic risk factors. The original focus was on the effects of aging (from middle age and up) and candidate genes (e.g., APOE, CHRNA4) in cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, with the cognitive and MRI-based data primarily being used for this purpose. However, as the main topic of the project broadened from cognitive aging to imaging and cognitive genetics more generally, the sample size, age range of the participants, and scope of available phenotypes and genotypes, have developed beyond the initial project. In 2009, a genome-wide association (GWA) study was undertaken, and the NCNG proper was established to study the genetics of cognitive and brain function more comprehensively. The NCNG is now controlled by the NCNG Study Group, which consists of the present authors. Prominent features of the NCNG are the adult life-span coverage of healthy participants with high-dimensional imaging, and cognitive data from a genetically homogenous sample. Another unique property is the large-scale (sample size 300–700) use of experimental cognitive tasks focusing on attention and working memory. The NCNG data is now used in numerous ongoing GWA-based studies and has contributed to several international consortia on imaging and cognitive genetics. The objective of the following presentation is to give other researchers the information necessary to evaluate possible contributions from the NCNG to various multi-sample data analyses.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yao Yao ◽  
Xiaozhen Lv ◽  
Chengxuan Qiu ◽  
Jiajianghui Li ◽  
Xiao Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Air pollution may accelerate cognitive aging, it is unclear whether large-scale interventions by Clean Air Act can mitigate the cognitive deterioration. Here, we conducted a difference-in-differences analysis based on Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey during 2014 and 2018. Intervention group came from where the government set a strict target of reducing air pollution, whereas control group lived in areas without reduction target. Global cognitive functions were measured using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). We found the intervention group with implementing Clean Air Act had a significantly smaller decline in MMSE score compared to the control group. Interquartile increases in PM2.5 and SO2 concentrations were significantly associated with a faster decline of MMSE score by 1.78 and 0.92 points, respectively. Implementing stringent clean air policies, especially in low- and middle-income countries may mitigate the risk of cognitive aging in older people.


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