About the Book
Until very recently, what we knew about the neural basis of cognitive ageing was based on two disciplines that had very little contact with each other. Whereas the neuroscience of ageing investigated the effects of aging on the brain independently of age-related changes in cognition, the cognitive psychology of ageing investigated the effects of ageing on cognition independently of age related changes in the brain. Because an increasing number of studies have focused on the relationships between cognitive ageing and cerebral ageing, these two disciplines have begun to interact. This rapidly growing body of research has come to constitute a new discipline: cognitive neuroscience of ageing. The goal of this book is to introduce this new discipline at a level that is useful to both professionals and students in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, neurology, and related areas. The book is divided into four main sections.
The first section describes non-invasive measures of cerebral ageing, including structural (eg volumetric MRI), chemical, (eg dopamine PET), electrophysiological (eg ERP's), and themodynamic measures (eg fMRI), and discusses how they can be linked to behavioural measures of cognitive ageing. The second section reviews evidence for the effects of ageing on neural activity during different cognitive functions, including perception and attention, use of imagery, working memory, long-term memory, and prospective memory. The third section focuses on clinical and applied concerns, such as the distinction between health ageing and ageing with Alzheimer's disease, and the use of cognitive training to ameliorate age-related cognitive decline. The final section describes theories that relate cognitive and cerebral ageing, 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 ageing.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1: Roberto Cabeza, Lars Nyberg, Denise C. Park: Cognitive neuroscience of aging: Emergence of a new discipline
I: IMAGING MEASURES
2: Naftali Raz: The aging brain observed in vivo: Differential changes and their modifiers
3: Lars Backman and Lars Farde: The role of dopamine receptors in cognitive aging
4: Monica Fabiani and Gabriele Gratton: Electrophysiological and optical measures of cognitive aging
5: Adam H. Gazzaley and Mark D'Esposito: A critical evaluation of BOLD functional MRI in the study of cognitive aging
6: Michael D. Rugg and Alexa M. Morcom: The relationship between brain activity, cognitive performance and aging: The case of memory
II: BASIC CONGITIVE PROCESSES
7: David J. Madden, Wythe L. Whiting and Scott A. Huettel: Age-related changes in neural activity during visual perception and attention
8: Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz and Ching-Yune C. Sylvester: The cognitive neuroscience of aging and working memory
9: Denise A. Park and Angela G. Gutchess: Long-term memory and aging: A cognitive neuroscience perspective
10: Robert West : The neural basis of age-related declines in prospective memory
III CLINICAL AND APPLIED ISSUES
11: Iandy L. Buckner: Three principles for congitive aging research: Multiple causes sequelae, variance in expression and response, and the need for integrative theory
12: Cheryl L. Grady: Functional connectivity during memory tasks in healthy aging and dementia
13: Lars Nyberg: Cognitive training in health aging: A cognitive neuroscience perspective
IV MODELS IN COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF AGING
14: Sander Daselaar and Roberto Cabeza: Age-related changes in hemospheric organization
15: Shu-Chen Li: Neurocomputational perspectives linking neuromodulation, processing noise, representational distinctiveness, and cognitive aging
Review :
"This is an ambitious undertaking...chapters dense in information, but actually it works..."--The Psychologist
"This excellent book marks the advent of a new discipline, the cognitive neuroscience of aging. It comprehensively covers measurement tools, empirical findings, and theoretical models. Editors and authors are leading scholars of this evolving discipline. I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in the intriguing dynamic between brain and cognition in old age." -Ulman Lindenberger, Professor of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
and Director, Center for Lifespan Development
"This is the right book, by the right authors, at the right time. The editors have assembled most of the leading investigators taking a neuroscience approach to the study of cognitive aging, and have asked them to write integrative reviews of the existing literature and to speculate about productive directions for future research. The result is not only a compendium of, in the editors' words "state-of-the-art knowledge about the cognitive neuroscience of aging
in 2004," but a valuable source of ideas for research over the next 5 to 10 years." -Timothy Salthouse, Brown-Forman Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia
"This is an ambitious undertaking...chapters dense in information, but actually it works..."--The Psychologist
"This excellent book marks the advent of a new discipline, the cognitive neuroscience of aging. It comprehensively covers measurement tools, empirical findings, and theoretical models. Editors and authors are leading scholars of this evolving discipline. I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in the intriguing dynamic between brain and cognition in old age." -Ulman Lindenberger, Professor of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
and Director, Center for Lifespan Development
"This is the right book, by the right authors, at the right time. The editors have assembled most of the leading investigators taking a neuroscience approach to the study of cognitive aging, and have asked them to write integrative reviews of the existing literature and to speculate about productive directions for future research. The result is not only a compendium of, in the editors' words "state-of-the-art knowledge about the cognitive neuroscience of aging
in 2004," but a valuable source of ideas for research over the next 5 to 10 years." -Timothy Salthouse, Brown-Forman Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia
