Memory Changes in Normal and Pathological Aging

Brain cholesterol in normal and pathological aging.

Correct lipid homeostasis at the plasma membrane is essential for cell survival and performance. These are critically challenged in the aging brain. Changes in the levels of cholesterol, a major membrane component especially enriched in neurons, accompany the brain aging process. They also occur in neurodegenerative diseases. Understanding the causes and consequences of these changes is a cruci...

Cognitive plasticity in normal and pathological aging

The main goal of the present study is to examine to what extent age and cognitive impairment contribute to learning performance (cognitive plasticity, cognitive modifiability, or learning potential). To address this question, participants coming from four studies (Longitudinal Study of Active Aging, age range, 55-75 years, N = 458; Longitudinal Study in the very old [90+], age range, 90-102, N ...

Memory in Normal Aging

Memory changes with normal aging: behavioral and electrophysiological measures.

We examined performance in young and elderly on an implicit (lexical decision) and an explicit (recognition) memory test. The difference in lexical decision times between old and new words was equivalent in the two groups, although the elderly were slower. In both groups, recognition accuracy (lower in the elderly) was higher following semantic than nonsemantic encoding, whereas lexical decisio...

The neurobiology of memory changes in normal aging.

Cognitive alterations occur over the lifespan of every species studied and have been quantified carefully in humans, other primates and rodents. Correspondingly, changes in hippocampal function have been associated with a number of observed memory impairments across species. It appears that humans, alone, show Alzheimer's disease-like cognitive and neural pathology spontaneously. Thus, a compar...