Paap Kenneth R
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA.
Brain Sci. 2024 Dec 17;14(12):1265. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14121265.
The concept of cognitive reserve (CR) has been a cornerstone in cognitive aging research, offering a framework to explain how life experiences like education, occupation, bilingualism, and physical exercise may buffer individuals from cognitive decline in the face of aging or neurological disease. However, this paper argues that the CR model, while influential, may have outlived its usefulness due to inherent limitations that constrain future research directions and unintentionally encourage "magical thinking". Specifically, CR's definition, which relies on cognitive performance being "better than expected" based on known measures of brain structure and function, makes the concept temporally bound to current scientific understanding, potentially stifling novel insights into cognition. In contrast, we propose a shift to a cognitive capacity (CC) framework, which views cognitive performance as being always determined by the brain's structural and functional capacities, without needing to invoke expectations based on incomplete knowledge. The CC framework is broader, encompassing factors that either promote or demote cognitive performance by directly modifying brain structure and function. This reconceptualization opens avenues for investigating cognitive enhancement not only in the context of aging or disease but also in young, healthy individuals. By emphasizing causal pathways between brain changes and cognitive outcomes, this perspective provides a more flexible and testable approach to understanding the mechanisms behind cognitive performance and its modulation across the lifespan.
认知储备（CR）的概念一直是认知衰老研究的基石，它提供了一个框架，用以解释诸如教育、职业、双语能力和体育锻炼等生活经历如何在个体面对衰老或神经疾病时缓冲认知衰退。然而，本文认为，CR模型虽然具有影响力，但可能已不再有用，因为其内在局限性限制了未来的研究方向，并且无意中助长了“神奇思维”。具体而言，CR的定义依赖于基于已知的脑结构和功能测量得出的认知表现“优于预期”，这使得该概念在时间上受限于当前的科学理解，可能会扼杀对认知的新见解。相比之下，我们建议转向认知能力（CC）框架，该框架将认知表现视为始终由大脑的结构和功能能力决定，而无需基于不完整的知识援引预期。CC框架更广泛，涵盖了通过直接改变脑结构和功能来促进或降低认知表现的因素。这种重新概念化不仅为在衰老或疾病背景下研究认知增强开辟了途径，也为年轻健康个体的认知增强研究提供了可能。通过强调大脑变化与认知结果之间的因果途径，这种观点为理解认知表现背后的机制及其在整个生命周期中的调节提供了一种更灵活、更具可测试性的方法。
