Department of Psychology, Center for Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2024;68:349-370. doi: 10.1007/7854_2024_476.
Research during the last two decades has shown that the brain undergoes continuous changes throughout life, with substantial heterogeneity in age trajectories between regions. Especially, temporal and prefrontal cortices show large changes, and these correlate modestly with changes in the corresponding cognitive abilities such as episodic memory and executive function. Changes seen in normal aging overlap with changes seen in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease; differences between what reflects normal aging vs. a disease-related change are often blurry. This calls for a dimensional view on cognitive decline in aging, where clear-cut distinctions between normality and pathology cannot be always drawn. Although much progress has been made in describing typical patterns of age-related changes in the brain, identifying risk and protective factors, and mapping cognitive correlates, there are still limits to our knowledge that should be addressed by future research. We need more longitudinal studies following the same participants over longer time intervals with cognitive testing and brain imaging, and an increased focus on the representativeness vs. selection bias in neuroimaging research of aging.
过去二十年的研究表明，大脑在整个生命周期中不断发生变化，不同区域的年龄轨迹存在显著异质性。特别是，颞叶和前额叶皮质显示出较大的变化，这些变化与相应的认知能力（如情景记忆和执行功能）的变化适度相关。正常衰老过程中出现的变化与阿尔茨海默病等神经退行性疾病中观察到的变化重叠；反映正常衰老与疾病相关变化之间的差异通常很模糊。这就需要从多维角度看待衰老过程中的认知衰退，在这种情况下，不能总是清楚地区分正常和病理。尽管在描述大脑与年龄相关的变化的典型模式、确定风险和保护因素以及映射认知相关性方面已经取得了很大进展，但我们的知识仍然存在局限性，这需要未来的研究来解决。我们需要更多的纵向研究，在更长的时间间隔内对同一参与者进行认知测试和脑成像，并更加关注衰老神经影像学研究中的代表性与选择偏倚。
