Pflueger Marlon O, Mager Ralph, Graf Marc, Stieglitz Rolf-Dieter
University of Basel, Forensic Clinic of the University Psychiatric Clinics, Basel, Switzerland.
University of Basel, University Psychiatric Clinics, Basel, Switzerland.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2023 Mar 13;15:1100057. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2023.1100057. eCollection 2023.
Age-related decline in episodic memory performance in otherwise healthy older adults is indisputably evident. Yet, it has been shown that under certain conditions episodic memory performance in healthy older adults' barely deviates from those seen in young adults. Here we report on the quality of object encoding in an ecologically valid, virtual-reality based memory assessment in a sample of healthy older and younger adults with comparable memory performance.
We analyzed encoding by establishing both a serial and semantic clustering index and an object memory association network.
As expected, semantic clustering was superior in older adults without need for additional allocation of executive resources whereas young adults tended more to rely on serial strategies. The association networks suggested a plethora of obvious but also less obvious memory organization principles, some of which indicated converging approaches between the groups as suggested by a subgraph analysis and some of which indicated diverging approaches as suggested by the respective network interconnectivity. A higher interconnectivity was observed in the older adults' association networks.
We interpreted this as a consequence of superior semantic memory organization (extent to which effective semantic strategies diverged within the group). In conclusion, these results might indicate a diminished need for compensatory cognitive effort in healthy older adults when encoding and recalling everyday objects under ecologically valid conditions. Due to an enhanced and multimodal encoding model, superior crystallized abilities might be sufficient to counteract an age-related decline in various other and specific cognitive domains. This approach might potentially elucidate age-related changes in memory performance in both healthy and pathological aging.
在其他方面健康的老年人中，情景记忆表现随年龄增长而下降是无可争议的明显现象。然而，研究表明，在某些条件下，健康老年人的情景记忆表现与年轻人的表现几乎没有差异。在此，我们报告了在一项基于虚拟现实的生态有效记忆评估中，对具有可比记忆表现的健康老年人和年轻人样本进行物体编码的质量。
我们通过建立序列和语义聚类指数以及物体记忆关联网络来分析编码。
正如预期的那样，语义聚类在老年人中更具优势，无需额外分配执行资源，而年轻人则更倾向于依赖序列策略。关联网络表明存在大量明显和不太明显的记忆组织原则，其中一些原则通过子图分析表明两组之间存在趋同方法，而另一些原则则通过各自网络的互连性表明存在分歧方法。在老年人的关联网络中观察到更高的互连性。
我们将此解释为语义记忆组织更优的结果（有效语义策略在组内的差异程度）。总之，这些结果可能表明，在生态有效条件下对日常物体进行编码和回忆时，健康老年人对补偿性认知努力的需求减少。由于增强的多模态编码模型，卓越的晶体能力可能足以抵消与年龄相关的在其他各种特定认知领域的下降。这种方法可能潜在地阐明健康衰老和病理性衰老中与年龄相关的记忆表现变化。
