Obesity is a health problem that has reached epidemic proportions. Given the high prevalence of obesity, even a small adverse impact of obesity on cognitive aging might have a serious effect on public health. The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the relation between obesity and cognitive function in late life among persons not diagnosed with dementia and to evaluate the evidence...

Existing neurocomputational and empirical data link deficient neuromodulation of the fronto-parietal and hippocampal-striatal circuitries with aging-related increase in processing noise and declines in various cognitive functions. Specifically, the theory of aging neuronal gain control postulates that aging-related suboptimal neuromodulation may attenuate neuronal gain control, which yields com...

to revisiting information transfer between neurons, with the proposed concept of a " tri-partite synapse " (Perea and Araque, 2002). In this issue, MacDonald et al. (2008) focus on the astrocyte-to-astrocyte communication , by exploring the long-range propagation mechanisms of intracellular calcium waves (ICW). These represent a form of intercellular signaling in astrocyte networks, where ATP r...

OBJECTIVE Neuropathological evidence suggests that the earliest changes in Alzheimer's disease selectively affect the parahippocampal regions of the brain. This study was conducted to determine if otherwise healthy elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment had structural volume deficits affecting the parahippocampal gyrus. METHOD Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to compare glob...

PURPOSE We provide an overview of theoretical models of cognitive aging and present empirical research that uses these models to explain older patients' medical behaviors and to develop interventions for improving the delivery of health information and services to older adults. DESIGN AND METHODS Theoretical accounts of age and cognition are summarized and are related to key research findings...

The number of the elderly across the globe will approximate 2.1 billion by 2050. Juxtaposed against this burgeoning segment of the population is evidence that nonpathological aging is associated with an increased risk for cognitive decline in a variety of domains, changes that can cause mild disability even before the onset of dementia. Given that pharmacological treatments that mitigate dement...

Advances in healthcare have considerably improved the life expectancy of the human population over the last century and this has brought about new challenges. As we live longer the capacity for cognitive aging increases. Consequently, it has been noted that decline in cognitive performance in the elderly in domains of reasoning, problem solving skills, attention, processing speed, working memor...

In this article, marking the 65th anniversary of the Journal of Gerontology, we offer a broad-brush overview of the new synthesis between neuroscientific and psychological approaches to cognitive aging. We provide a selective review of brain imaging studies and their relevance to mechanisms of cognitive aging first identified primarily from behavioral measurements. We also examine some new key ...