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cognitive ageing Flashcards

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1
Q

Cognitive Ageing: ‘Normal’ Decline

A
  • Slower thinking
  • Slower doing
  • Hesitating more
  • More likely to think before acting
  • Knowing the person but not the name
  • Pausing to find words
  • Being reminded of the past
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2
Q

Cognitive Ageing: Not ‘Normal’ Decline

A
  • Not thinking the same
  • Not doing the same
  • Can’t get started
  • Thinking but not acting
  • Not knowing the person
  • Not being able to find words
  • Confusion about past versus now
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3
Q

What is Negatively Affected by Cog Ageing?

A
  • Memory (particularly working memory)
  • Reasoning
  • Attention
  • Visual processing
  • Reaction time/processing speed
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4
Q

Biology Behind Cog Ageing

A
  • white & grey matter deteriorate with age
  • white matter loss may be responsible for many typical symptoms - ‘fluid intelligence’
  • decrease in plasticity
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5
Q

What is Grey and White Matter

A

Grey Matter:
* in the cerebrum
* creates the cerebral cortex
* responsible for conscious perception of movement, sensation, & association between the two

White matter:
* in the cerebrum
* connects areas of the same or different hemispheres
* communicates with the spinal cord

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6
Q

Where Does the ‘Use It or Lose It’ Idea Come From?

A

Brain Plasticity

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7
Q

4 Ways

Ways to Reduce Cog Ageing

A
  • develop new skills earlier in life
  • early IQ
  • hobbies & lifestyle choices
  • gaming
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8
Q

Preventing Cog Ageing: Evidence for Developing New Skills Earlier in Life

A
  • Maguire, Woollett, & Spires (2006) found large hippocampi in London taxi drivers
  • Draganski et al., (2004) found growth in ppts who learned to juggle
  • Boyke et al., (2008) replicated with ppts aged 50-67
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9
Q

What Impacts Early Decline?

A
  • early IQ
  • exercise
  • hormones
  • vitamins
  • diet
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10
Q

What is Homocysteine?

A

Homocysteine is an amino acid produced when proteins are broken down

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11
Q

What is the Normal Level for Homocysteine in the Blood?

A

A normal level of homocysteine in the blood is less than 15 micromoles per liter (mcmol/L) of blood

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12
Q

What do High Levels of Homocysteine in the Blood Indicate?

A

High homocysteine levels usually indicate a deficiency in vitamin B-12 or folate

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13
Q

How can High Levels of Homocysteine Affect Cog Ageing?

A
  • high levels may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease - a risk factor for dementia
  • this happens by promoting silent brain infarcts and atherosclerosis, causing cognitive impairment
  • high levels may also produce neuronal cell damage by activating N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors
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14
Q

The Effect of Oestrogen on Homocysteine

A

Oestrogen lowers homocysteine levels

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15
Q

Evidence for Oestrogen Lowering Homocysteine Levels

A

Lakryc et al (2015):
* 20.7% reduction in homocysteine levels after 6 months of unopposed oestrogen therapy
* 2.2% decrease in homocysteine levels after 6 months of oestrogen-progestin therapy
* data suggests that hormone therapy may have a positive influence on decreasing cardiovascular risk due to a significant reduction in homocysteine levels

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16
Q

What Do Oestrogens Do in the Brain?

A
  • stimulate cerebral blood flow, glucose uptake
  • stimulate branching dendrites (through NGF)
  • influence factor that affects neuronal death/survival & function
  • modulates NT release & receptors
17
Q

Describe the Cycle of Homocysteine Metabolism

A

S-adenosylmethionine (acceptor)
-> S-adenosylhomocysteine (methylated acceptor)
-> Homocysteine (B6->Cystathionine->B6->Cysteine)
-> Folate (B12)
-> Methionine

18
Q

3 Substances which can Lower Homocysteine Levels

A
  • oestrogens
  • folic acid
  • vitamin B12
19
Q

Evidence for Folic Acid & B12 Lowering Homocysteine Levels

A

Homocysteine Lowering Trialists’ (HLT) Collaboration (1998):
* meta-analysis of 12 randomised controlled trials
* 0.5-5mg folic acid reduced homocysteine by 25%
* 0.5mg B12 reduced homocysteine by +7%
* (vitamin B-6 (mean 16.5 mg daily) did not have a significant additional effect)

20
Q

Interventions to Reduce Cog Ageing

A
  • encouraged as lifestyle choices - especially effective if adopted early
  • exercise - particularly sport-based
  • healthy eating
  • cognitively engaging hobbies - e.g. chess
  • two prep papers – music and language
21
Q

Interventions = i.e. lifestyle choices such as exercise

What Do Interventions Cause which Reduces Cog Ageing?

A

Build a buffer called ‘cognitive reserve’

22
Q

Cognitive Reserve

A
  • you (or most of you) engage certain areas when completing complex cognitive tasks
  • frontal lobe decays heavily with age, but some older people still perform well on these tasks - Why?
  • cognitively engaging hobbies and lifestyle have kept them sharp, which means they can recruit extra brain areas
  • They have built up a reserve of cognitive support
  • But these activities only engage certain aspects of cognition – can we improve overall with just one measure?
23
Q

Which aspects of Cognition can be Improved by Gaming?

A
  • working memory
  • spatial awareness
  • abstract reasoning
  • reaction time
  • distraction control
  • plasticity
24
Q

Gaming: The Effect of Action Games on Cognition

A
  • force the player to filter out distracting info - building cognitive reserve (top down vs bottom up)
25
Q

Evidence for Action Games Improving Cognition

A

Green & Bavelier (2003):
* suggested a causal relationship between playing action video games and improvements in a variety of visual and attentional skills

26
Q

Criticisms for Action Games Improving Cognition

A
  • not many pensioners play Call of Duty (and many wouldn’t want to)
  • there’s evidence with older groups and other game genres
  • ‘Neuroracer’ – improved older adults multi-tasking to same as 20 y/o
  • ‘Rise of Nations’ – improved visuo-spatial skill and executive control
27
Q

How could Gaming Improve Plasticity?

A
  • increase size of hippocampus - well-functioning H is vital for healthy cog ageing (link to taxi driver study)
28
Q

Evidence for Gaming Increasing Size of Hippocampi

A

Kuhn et al (2014):
* longitudinal training study
* young adults who trained on Super Mario 64 for two months displayed a significantly different amount of grey matter in the hippocampus when contrasted with a passive no-contact control group
* gaming induces structural brain plasticity

29
Q

Evidence for Physical Games Improving Cog Ageing

A

Allaire et al (2013):
* found that physical games were good for cog health (makes sense, since we know exercise helps cog ageing)

30
Q

Future Implications

What other way could exercise/physical games be used to improve Cog Ageing?

A

Virtual Reality:
* could provide even greater stimulation than screen-based interfaces, and utilises exercise
* is already used in many other areas of psychology, so big potential

cognitive psychology (10 decks)

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