The Impact of Age on Cognition

Abstract

This article reviews the cognitive changes that occur with normal aging, the structural and functional correlates of these cognitive changes, and the prevalence and cognitive effects of age-associated diseases. Understanding these age-related changes in cognition is important given our growing elderly population and the importance of cognition in maintaining functional independence and effective communication with others. The most important changes in cognition with normal aging are declines in performance on cognitive tasks that require one to quickly process or transform information to make a decision, including measures of speed of processing, working memory, and executive cognitive function. Cumulative knowledge and experiential skills are well maintained into advanced age. Structural and function changes in the brain correlate with these age-related cognitive changes, including alterations in neuronal structure without neuronal death, loss of synapses, and dysfunction of neuronal networks. Age-related diseases accelerate the rate of neuronal dysfunction, neuronal loss, and cognitive decline, with many persons developing cognitive impairments severe enough to impair their everyday functional abilities. There is emerging evidence that healthy lifestyles may decrease the rate of cognitive decline seen with aging and help delay the onset of cognitive symptoms in the setting of age-associated diseases.

An investigation of the relationship between social support and coping with stress in women with breast cancer

“…In the present study, it was determined that the perceived social support from family and total perceived social support were associated with effective coping with stress. In the literature, social support was found useful for patients with cancer, and these patients often received support from their families . It was determined that the support received from family members had a positive correlation with well‐being of patients with cancer, and as the support received from family increased, effective coping ways increased .…”

“Walking” through the sensory, cognitive, and temporal degradations of healthy aging

“…Cognitive aging is part of the normal aging process and has been receiving growing interest over the last few years. Most cognitive aging theories distinguish between experience‐based crystallized abilities (i.e., cumulative knowledge that is overlearned, well‐practiced, and familiar, e.g., vocabulary and reading comprehension) and fluid abilities that require one to process and learn new information and to attend to and manipulate environmental information (e.g., executive function, processing speed, memory) . Crystallized abilities remain stable or gradually improve at a rate of 0.02–0.003 standard deviations per year until the sixth and seventh decades of life, while fluid abilities reach their peak in the third decade of life and then gradually decline at an estimated rate of –0.02 standard deviations per year .…”

“…The common age‐related decline in cognitive functioning has been reported to result from several mechanisms, including decrements in dopamine availability in striatal and cortical areas, anatomical changes in medial‐temporal and prefrontal areas, structural and functional connectivity decrements due to white matter alterations, and impaired synchronization of oscillatory activity within and across fast and slow frequencies . Normal aging is also accompanied by structural and functional changes of the synapses, particularly in prefrontal areas (i.e., decreased number of axons and dendrites, decreased length of dendrites, loss of dendritic spines, and reduced synaptic density); decreases in gray and white matter volume, brain size and weight, as well as expansion of cerebral ventricles and sulci; deformation and loss of myelin sheathing; loss of dendritic arborization and neuronal bodies; and rarefication of cerebral vasculature . After the age of 65, a reduction of 10–17% of the frontal cortex occurs, while the temporal, parietal, and occipital cortices are reduced only by 1%, suggesting a selective deterioration of areas involved in high‐level cognitive function .…”

“…The latter processes depend highly on medial temporal lobe structures (i.e., hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, and portions of the temporal cortex) and their interplay with cortical regions . The age‐related changes in episodic memory have been linked to volume losses and white matter decreases (∼ 16–20%) in the frontal lobe, corpus callosum, and parahippocampal area; degeneration and loss of approximately 46% of thin synaptic spines in DLPFC; and synaptic alterations in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus . However, as for most cognitive abilities, there is a great heterogeneity among older adults in the rate of memory decline.…”

Cortical naming sites and increasing age in adults with refractory epilepsy: More might be less

“…Although ESM is performed most frequently in adults, the potential influence of age on ESM results beyond adolescence is unknown and has not been investigated, probably because brain maturation with regard to language is assumed to be complete. In addition, unlike other cognitive domains such as memory and executive functioning, which are known to decline with age, verbal abilities are considered less vulnerable to the effects of aging . In fact, vocabulary and general knowledge have been shown to improve across the life span .…”