Moore Tara L, Killiany Ronald J, Herndon James G, Rosene Douglas L, Moss Mark B
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, 715 Albany Street, W-701, Boston, MA 02118, USA.
Neurobiol Aging. 2006 Oct;27(10):1484-93. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2005.08.004. Epub 2005 Sep 23.
As our understanding of age-related cognitive decline advances, studies are now focusing on identification of those areas of cognitive function that undergo the first changes with age. In the present study, in order to determine whether executive function is sensitive to the aging process, we assessed the performance of 16 monkeys of middle-age (12-19 years of age) on the conceptual set-shifting task, an analogue of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We compared their performance to that of seven young adult (5-9 years of age) and 18 aged monkeys (20-30). The findings showed that middle-aged monkeys, like those of advanced age, were significantly impaired on the conceptual set-shifting task (CSST). These findings parallel those of recent studies in humans demonstrating an increase in perseverative errors on the WCST by middle-aged as well as aged individuals and, in turn, support the notion that disruption of executive function is one of the earliest changes in cognition to occur in normal aging.
随着我们对与年龄相关的认知衰退的理解不断深入，目前的研究聚焦于确定认知功能中哪些领域会随着年龄增长而首先发生变化。在本研究中，为了确定执行功能是否对衰老过程敏感，我们评估了16只中年猴子（12 - 19岁）在概念性集合转换任务中的表现，该任务类似于威斯康星卡片分类测验（WCST）。我们将它们的表现与7只年轻成年猴子（5 - 9岁）和18只老年猴子（20 - 30岁）的表现进行了比较。研究结果表明，中年猴子与老年猴子一样，在概念性集合转换任务（CSST）中表现出显著受损。这些发现与最近人类研究的结果相似，这些研究表明中年人和老年人在WCST上的持续性错误增加，进而支持了这样一种观点，即执行功能的破坏是正常衰老过程中最早出现的认知变化之一。
