Cognition

Abstract

Cognition can be defined as neurocognitive processes of how humans learn and remember. As humans age, threats of neurocognitive disturbances are probably the most feared psychiatric problems, but these processes also can be disrupted by biological abnormalities closely connected to other psychiatric problems. The theme of this article is that basic research in areas of cognition and advances in the discovery of novel pharmacotherapy for neurocognitive and psychiatric disorders that affect the elderly are inextricably intertwined. Drug evaluations in animal models should be conducted in, three basic types of learning/memory paradigms (habituation, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning) and should assess the effects of agent on learning, retention, and retrieval. The importance of this strategy involves issues of single or multiple learning processes in the paradigms, whether different types of paradigms give rise to different kinds of memories or whether the same paradigm may produce several fundamentally different types of memories that may or may not be interdependent. Medications currently in use for ameliorating neurocognitive disorders are mostly ineffective. New pharmacotherapy is urgently needed, and a seemingly innumerable collection of drugs has been proposed as the latest “key” to unlock mechanisms of dysfunction in neurocognition. In some cases, new agents have functioned (biochemically) exactly as advertised, but virtually all have proved unacceptable for clinically use. Future therapies for neurocognitive disorders will likely benefit from the recognition that multiple cellular mechanisms and neurotransmitter processes are involved and that administration of combinations of agents that provide “wide‐spectrum” actions may be most useful.