Experimental Aging Research最新文献

Background/study context: The main aim of the current study was to investigate the role of adult age in the moral stereotyping of moral foundations. The five core moral foundations of Moral Foundations Theory were measured, including the individualizing foundations of harm and fairness and the binding foundations of ingroup loyalty, authority, and purity.

Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions: a self-evaluation condition where participants completed the moral questionnaire as themselves, a condition where participants provided ratings as they believed a typical younger adult would answer them, and a condition where participants provided ratings as they believed a typical older adult would answer them. Experiment 1 included younger and older adult participants, and Experiment 2 included participants across adulthood (range 19 to 85).

Results: Older adulthood was associated with higher individualizing foundations ratings (Experiment 1, Experiment 2) and higher binding foundations ratings (Experiment 1). Results found significant moral stereotyping, with participants tending to imagine older adults providing significantly lower ratings on individualizing moral foundations than younger adults but higher ratings on binding moral foundations. Finally, older adults were more accurate in their predictions of the moral foundations ratings of younger adults than vice versa.

Conclusion: The authors suggest that adult age group is a salient factor that people form generalizations about regarding moral foundations, which could then contribute to either real or perceived "generational divides" on various sociocultural issues.

Master athletes are a model of successful aging as their high level of physical activity limits the age-related change of physiological functions. This model is used to investigate how a high level of physical activity impacts cognitive functioning. We aim to study the effect of a high level of physical activity on the ability to manage interferences and binding processes in episodic encoding in an ecological situation. Fifty-five participants were recruited and separated into three groups: 18 master athletes (MA, M = 69.39, SD = 1.13 years), 18 young adults (YA, M = 22.44, SD = 1.10 years), and 19 older adults with a moderate level of physical activity (OA, M = 72.11, SD = 1.10 years). Participants performed an episodic memory task assessing binding processes by encoding under either full or divided attention using a virtual reality technique. After encoding under divided attention, MA outperformed OA in the interference task as well as in the binding score on both free and cued recall. After encoding under full attention, YA and MA did not differ in the number of events recalled in cued recall. Furthermore, significant correlations were found between weekly volume of physical activity and cognitive performance. Binding and interference management, and probably the hippocampus along with prefrontal areas, benefit the most from a sustained and regular physical activity in master athletes.

Objectives: As one of the common senile syndromes characterized by the co-existence of physical frailty and cognitive impairment without dementia, the occurrence of cognitive frailty (CF) increases the risk of adverse health outcomes in older adults. However, its reversibility has attracted the interest of researchers in the search for effective interventions. A growing number of studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of regular physical exercise intervention on cognitive frailty in older adults with CF, but findings remain inconclusive. This study aimed to synthesize the pooled effect of current regular exercise intervention in community-dwelling older adults with cognitive frailty.

Methods: Nine electronic databases (Cochrane Library, PubMed, EBSCOHost, Web of Science, Scopus, CNKI, Wanfang Database, VIP and SinoMed) were searched from their inception to 15 May, 2024. The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool (ROB 2) for RCTs was applied to assess the methodological quality. The mean difference or standardized mean difference with 95% CIs was calculated by using Stata 18.0.

Results: Seventeen eligible studies involving a total of 2239 participants were included. The pooled results showed that older adults with CF in the intervention group had significant improvement in global cognitive function performance (MMSE scores: MD = 1.93 95% CI: 1.02 to 2.85, p < .0001, and MoCA scores: MD = 3.24, 95% CI: 1.57 to 4.91, p < .0001), executive function (time of TMT-B test: MD = -20.73, 95% CI: -33.96 to -7.50, p = .002), physical frailty state (Fried frailty phenotype scores: MD = -1.48, 95% CI: -2.37 to -0.58, p = .001, and EFS scores: MD = -0.81 points, 95% CI: -1.13 to -0.49, p < .0001), grip strength (SMD = 0.92, 95% CI: 0.15 to 1.07, p = .02), gait and balance (time of TUG: MD = -2.62, 95% CI: -4.12 to -1.11, p = .001), balance (BBS scores: MD = 8.56, 95% CI:- 3.37 to 13.75, p = .001) and quality of life (SMD = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.30 to 1.21, p = .001).

Conclusions: More than eight weeks of regular exercise interventions may improve global cognitive function and physical frailty status, but the effect on specific domains of cognitive or physical function needs further study to confirm.

Objectives: Cognitive decline in non-pathological aging is widely prevalent among the aging population. The current study assessed the impact of cognitive training (Ct) with multiple modules targeting various facets of learning and memory and the additional influence of an enriched environment (Ct+ee) on hippocampal subfields of aging male rats.

Methods: Male Wistar rats aged 18 months were sorted into Control, Ct, and Ct+ee groups and were exposed to the respective modules for 30 days. Spontaneous behavioral tasks to assess working memory and recognition memory were performed. The hippocampal proper (CA1, CA3) and dentate gyrus (DG) neurons were analyzed for dendrite length, arborization, and spine density. The Synaptophysin, PSD 95 and BDNF, p53 and p-tau levels in the hippocampus were quantified.

Results: The Ct group and Ct+ee group performed significantly better than the control group in behavioural tasks and had improved dendrite profiles of DG and basal tree of CA1 region of hippocampus. The Ct+ee group had increased dendrite length, arborization, and spine density in CA1, CA3 and DG neurons. Ct and Ct+ee groups showed increased expression of synaptophysin, PSD95 and BDNF and decreased p53 and p-tau levels in the hippocampus.

Conclusion: Cognitive training modules targeting specific mnemonic functions and enriched environment with diverse cognitive stimulators had a comprehensive effect on the neuronal health augmenting the impoverished cognitive reserve in aging rats.

Background: Olfactory-based cognitive stimulation is frequently proposed for memory-impaired patients (namely dementia patients), but little is known about the scientific rationale underlying odor choice.

Objectives: Here, we aimed at investigating the evolution of the olfactory experience related to memory evocation in normal aging. Methods. We presented 20 odorants to 25 Young Adults (YA), 36 "young" Older Adults (OA; 65 - 74y) and 26 "old" OA (75 - 89y) and asked them to freely report what each odor evoked to them. Responses were analyzed using both univariate inferential statistics and multivariate descriptive analysis.

Results: Results showed that the ability to experience phenomenological properties of evoked memories decreases with advancing age. Odor identity is increasingly used as a retrieval cue with age, providing necessary support for OA retrieval strategies. However, semantic information does not enhance the chances for old-OA to experience memories' phenomenological properties.

Conclusion: Tailoring the choice of odors during stimulating activities is therefore crucial. In this respect, we provided a limited selection of the most well-characterized odorous stimuli and sorted them based on the phenomenological experience they're more likely to trigger across ages.

To examine why older adults avoid choices more, two pre-registered, U.S.-based studies (N₁ = 164, M_{age_1} = 50.71, N₂ = 485, M_{age_2} = 51.08) evaluated the roles of cognitive load and affect. In Study 2, half were randomized to a writing condition theorized to decrease avoidance. Across studies, older age was positively associated with avoiding choices and improved affect after doing so. Avoidance was linked to perceiving higher cognitive loads but neither load nor other covariates accounted for older adults' avoidance tendencies. The writing condition resulted in lower cognitive loads and more positive decision-related affect but did not decrease avoidance.

Background: Cognitive models of depression assert that attentional biases play an important role in the maintenance of depression. However, few studies have explored attentional bias in depressed older adults, and no consistent conclusions have been reached.

Methods: In the current study, we investigated attentional bias in older adults with non-clinical depression. Older adults aged over 60 with non-clinical depression and without depression were instructed to perform a free viewing task while their eye movements were tracked.

Results: The results showed that, compared to older adults without depression, non-clinically depressed older adults had longer total fixation durations and a greater number of fixations on sad stimuli. Moreover, non-depressed older adults exhibited a preference for pleasant images, whereas this effect was not observed in older adults with non-clinical depression.

Conclusion: This study suggested that non-clinically depressed older adults have attentional bias, which is manifested as increased attention to sad stimuli and decreased attention to pleasant stimuli.The current study has functional and potential functional implications.

Introduction: This study aimed to assess prevalence of back pain among older people living with HIV (PLH) in rural areas of the United States (US); compare the presence of comorbidities, socioeconomic factors, and sociodemographic factors among older PLH in rural areas of the US with and without back pain; and examine the associations between back pain, depression, and QOL among older PLH in rural areas of the US.

Methods: Cross-sectional data was collected among US rural dwelling PLH of at least 50 years of age. Multiple logistic regression was performed to examine the association between back pain and depression. Multiple linear regression was performed to assess the association between back pain and QOL.

Results: A total of 38.8% (n = 164) of participants self-reported back pain. PLH with back pain were more likely to have depression (60.87%, n = 98). PLH with back pain had lower mean QOL scores (53.01 ± 18.39). Back pain was associated with greater odds of having depression (OR 1.61 [CI 0.99-2.61], p = .054) and was significantly associated with lower QOL (p < .001).

Conclusions: Prevention strategies to reduce back pain and poor HIV outcomes among PLH living in rural areas of the US are needed.

Introduction: The Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) occurs whenever participants recognize stimuli paired earlier with to-be-responded targets better than stimuli earlier paired with to-be-ignored distractors or presented on their own (baseline). Previous studies showed that the ABE does not occur in older adults when the encoding time is too short (500 ms/word) or when encoding is incidental, likely due to aging-related reductions in cognitive resources or limitations of processing speed.

Method: In the present study, younger and older adults encoded words presented for 1000 ms under intentional instructions. In addition, to determine the potential impact of the retention interval, the recognition task was performed after a delay of 2 minutes (Experiment 1) or 20 minutes (Experiment 2).

Results: Under these conditions, older adults showed a significant ABE and the size of the effect was comparable to that achieved by younger adults. The magnitude of the ABE was vulnerable to the passage of time because the recognition advantage of target-paired words decreased sharply from 2 to 20 minutes.

Conclusions: Taken together, our data demonstrate that younger and older adults may have comparable ABE effects under specific conditions and are similarly sensitive to interference.

Objective: This study aimed to analyze the effect and potential mechanism of cognitive intervention and rehabilitation training in elderly patients with diabetes mellitus complicated with mild cognitive impairment.

Methods: In this study, 128 elderly patients with diabetes mellitus complicated with mild cognitive impairment were randomly divided into the control group and the training group. The effects of the two groups were compared before and after the cognitive intervention. The expression of miR-134-5p was assessed by qRT-PCR. The relationships between miR-134-5p and Mini-Mental State Examination Scale and Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale were evaluated.

Results: After 3-month management, the Mini-Mental State Examination Scale, Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale, the Chinese version of the diabetes self-efficacy rating scale, and WHO quality of life brief were improved in both control group and training group, and the training group showed better improvement. Cognitive intervention and rehabilitation training restricted the expression of miR-134-5p. The levels of miR-134-5p were pertinent to cognitive function.

Conclusion: Cognitive intervention and rehabilitation training might prevent the development of diabetes mellitus complicated with mild cognitive impairment by inhibiting miR-134-5p.