Cognition and ageing

Question 1

When can changes in brain anatomy and function be detected?

Answer 1

from 20 years onwards

Question 2

What do changes in brain anatomy in relation to ageing include?

Answer 2

1. loss of neuronal number and size
2. decreased volume of cortical grey matter
3. reduction in efficiency of cellular function

Question 3

How does plasticity change with age?

Answer 3

1. limited in adults
2. synaptic connections continue to reorganise largely in response to environmental conditions
3. myelination in some areas of white matter continues to 40s
4. neuronal replacement has been identified in olfactory bulb and hippocampus

Question 4

How does cognition change over the adult lifespan?

Answer 4

1. performance preserved for word knowledge
2. performance declines with age for WM, LTM, and processing speed

Question 5

What sensory changes occur with age?

Answer 5

1. hearing sensitivity declines and affects most over 70
2. central and peripheral vision decline with age
3. dual sensory decline may also occur

Question 6

How do sensory changes affect perception and processing ability?

Answer 6

impacts cognitive resources - uses them to decode info which could have been used for encoding and rehearsal

Question 7

What is the issue with compensation for sensory losses?

Answer 7

1. may not work with complex stimuli
2. not sustainable over time

Question 8

How does age affect WM?

Answer 8

1. decrease in span
2. decline in attentional inhibition - CE reduced ability to inhibit irrelevant info
3. impacts verbal fluency

Question 9

How does age affect LTM?

Answer 9

1. difficulty with retrieval
2. more frequent tip-of-the-tongue experiences - affects recall not storage
3. change in source memory - know an event occurred, but not how or when
4. experientially based measures (e.g. vocab) improve

Question 10

How is attention affected by age?

Answer 10

1. reduced attentional inhibition of competing/irrelevant info
2. parallel-processing cognitive demands become more difficult

Question 11

How is reduced attentional inhibition of competing/irrelevant info experienced?

Answer 11

1. prolonged access to info that is no longer relevant
2. contributes to retrieval competition between irrelevant info and relevant info

Question 12

Define dual task interference

Answer 12

occurs when performance of one or both tasks declines compared to performance of each single task carried out separately

Question 13

How does ageing affect dual task interference?

Answer 13

elements of visuospatial WM declined with simple tapping tasks

Question 14

What can cause individual differences in ageing?

Answer 14

1. environmental differences
2. genetic factors
3. which brain systems and associated cognitive functions are involved

Question 15

How is cognitive reserve achieved?

Answer 15

it uses unused resources to give the individual good cognitive function when they have difficulties affecting the brain

Question 16

What is required to maintain cognitive function?

Answer 16

the ability to compensate and the presence of cognitive reserve

Question 17

How is cognitive reserve built and maintained?

Answer 17

through physical, environmental, and experiential means