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3 - How Age-Related Changes in the Brain Affect Cognition

from Part I - Models of Cognitive Aging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2020

Ayanna K. Thomas
Affiliation:
Tufts University, Massachusetts
Angela Gutchess
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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Summary

Cognition changes with age, and the amount and trajectory of change varies across individuals and functions. In this review, we argue that three general principles characterize adult life-span changes in brain and cognition. (1) Dimensionality: Many features of brain and cognition in aging and neurodegenerative disease represent quantitative differences along a continuum and are not unique to pathology. (2) Early influences – developmental origins of health and disease: Genetic dispositions and early environmental factors, likely even from fetal life, can have lasting impact on the brain and cognition. (3) Influences from a multitude of environmental factors: Current brain state and cognitive function will be determined by a combination of early factors and later environmental influences, often in interaction. These principles entail a model of age-associated cognitive decline and dementia based on dimensions rather than categories, life span rather than aging, and multidimensional systems-vulnerability rather than one major “biomarker.”

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