Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience, Intramural Research Project, National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Psychol Aging. 2012 Sep;27(3):707-19. doi: 10.1037/a0026715. Epub 2011 Dec 26.
Several studies have demonstrated age-related declines in general executive function and memory. In this study, we examined cross-sectional and longitudinal age effects in more specific cognitive processes that constitute executive function and memory. We postulated that, whereas some components of executive and memory functions would show age differences and longitudinal declines, other specific abilities would be maintained or even improve with repeated testing. In a sample of individuals ≥55 years old from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, we found longitudinal declines in inhibition, manipulation, semantic retrieval, phonological retrieval, switching, and long-term memory over a maximum of 14 years follow-up. In contrast, abstraction, capacity, chunking, discrimination, and short-term memory were maintained or even improved longitudinally, probably due in part to repeated testing. Moreover, whereas several different abilities were correlated across participants' cross-sectional performance, longitudinal changes in performance showed more heterogeneous trajectories. Finally, compared with cross-sectional performance, longitudinal trajectories showed better distinction between participants with and those without later cognitive impairment. These results show that longitudinal cognitive aging of executive and memory functions is not a uniform process but a heterogeneous one and suggest that certain executive and memory functions remain stable despite age-related declines in other component processes.
多项研究表明，一般执行功能和记忆力会随年龄增长而下降。在这项研究中，我们考察了构成执行功能和记忆的更具体认知过程的横断面和纵向年龄效应。我们假设，虽然某些执行和记忆功能的成分会表现出年龄差异和纵向下降，但其他特定能力会通过反复测试得到保持甚至提高。在巴尔的摩老龄化纵向研究中≥55 岁的个体样本中，我们发现，在长达 14 年的随访中，抑制、操作、语义检索、语音检索、转换和长期记忆的纵向衰退。相比之下，抽象、容量、分块、辨别和短期记忆得到了保持甚至提高，这可能部分归因于反复测试。此外，尽管参与者的横断面表现存在多种不同的能力相关，但表现的纵向变化呈现出更具异质性的轨迹。最后，与横断面表现相比，纵向轨迹在区分有和无后续认知障碍的参与者方面表现出更好的区别。这些结果表明，执行功能和记忆功能的纵向认知衰老不是一个统一的过程，而是一个异质的过程，表明某些执行功能和记忆功能在其他成分过程随年龄相关下降的情况下保持稳定。
