Strategy training to support healthy cognitive ageing: behavioural, neuroimaging, and real-world investigations

支持健康认知老龄化的策略培训：行为、神经影像和现实世界调查

• 批准号: ES/X01133X/1
• 负责人: Louise Nicholls
• 金额: $ 106.97万
• 依托单位: University of Strathclyde
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX01133X%2F1
• 关键词: Strategy; training; support; healthy; cognitive

Our project is aimed at boosting memory and thinking skills ('cognition') through the adult lifespan, and helping prevent impairment in older age. The abilities underlying moment-to-moment functioning typically decline gradually as we age. For example, we might notice more short-term memory slips ('what did I come in here for?'). With rapidly ageing populations, rates of cognitive impairment and dementia are increasing (WHO, 2021). Accessible, cost-effective interventions that promote healthy and active ageing are required (WHO, 2020). Importantly, the ways in which we approach cognitive tasks, such as using particular strategies, could help to maintain our thinking skills and even delay onset of impairment and dementia (Cabeza et al. 2018). Instructing people to use their cognitive abilities in specific ways can therefore boost performance, but more research is needed to inform future interventions (WHO, 2019).We are experts in cognitive ageing, dementia, and strategy training, using lab-based and 'real-world' experiments, and eye-tracking and brain imaging techniques (e.g. Allen ... & Nicholls, 2021; Gonzalez ... & Burke, 2016; Parra, ... Nicholls, et al., 2019; von Bastian et al., 2022). Using these methods, we propose to examine how strategies can effectively enhance younger and older adults' cognitive functioning. Strategies include actively rehearsing information or prioritising important details (Gonthier, 2021). Indeed, we showed that younger and older adults' visual short-term memory, which is vulnerable to age-related decline (Nicholls & English, 2020), can be boosted by training in prioritisation (Allen et al., 2021). However, we now need to investigate strategies comprehensively to understand which can work well and for whom, and the associated patterns of brain activity, during everyday tasks.Our proposed research will incorporate the latest theoretical and methodological developments in cognition and ageing research alongside co-design with targeted user groups from the community and the voluntary, clinical, and public sectors. Our first set of studies will involve traditional, lab-based experiments measuring performance of real-world short- and long-term memory tasks, based on validated protocols. Younger and older adults will be asked to remember objects presented in realistic, virtual scenes (e.g. yellow teapot on a kitchen worktop). We will comprehensively establish the range of strategies they report and assess the relationships with memory performance. We will then investigate strategies and cognitive performance over time using an 'experience sampling' method that we have previously validated with older adults. This involves daily participation via smartphones in everyday life, and will further establish variation due to factors such as personality and mental wellbeing. Finally, we will assess the impacts of training younger and older adults to use the two best candidate strategies that emerged from the earlier work. We will also track eye movements related to strategy and cognitive performance, and employ innovative, cost-effective, and non-invasive methods for establishing associated brain functioning patterns.We will provide important new insights regarding cognition and cognitive ageing while developing accessible, scalable, and cost-effective approaches to supporting cognition in the real world. Throughout, we will engage our stakeholders (e.g. community-based older adults, NHS Lanarkshire, Scottish Government Age Equality Network, Scottish Older People's Assembly, U3A), and an independent expert academic panel. We will share our findings via academic publications and conferences, and an extensive range of public engagement activities, culminating in a 'Strategy Toolkit' developed for and with stakeholders. This will provide state-of-the-art, accessible, evidence-based guidelines and resources on cognition and cognitive ageing, and how to use strategies to support everyday functioning.

我们的项目旨在通过成人寿命提高记忆和思维技能（“认知”），并有助于防止年龄较大的损害。随着年龄的增长，瞬间发挥作用的能力通常会逐渐下降。例如，我们可能会注意到更多的短期内存滑倒（“我来这里是做什么？”）。随着人群的快速老龄化，认知障碍和痴呆症的率正在增加（Who，2021年）。需要促进健康和积极衰老的可及，具有成本效益的干预措施（WHO，2020）。重要的是，我们处理认知任务（例如使用特定策略）的方式可以帮助维持我们的思维能力，甚至延迟损害和痴呆症的发作（Cabeza等，2018）。因此，指示人们以特定方式使用自己的认知能力可以提高表现，但是需要更多的研究来告知未来的干预措施（WHO，2019年）。我们是认知衰老，痴呆症和策略培训方面的专家，使用基于实验室的实验和“现实世界”的实验，以及眼睛跟踪和大脑成像技术（例如Nicholls等人，2019年；冯·巴斯蒂安（Von Bastian）等人，2022年）。使用这些方法，我们建议研究策略如何有效地增强年轻成年人的认知功能。策略包括积极排练信息或优先考虑重要细节（Gonthier，2021）。确实，我们表明，年轻和老年人的视觉短期记忆很容易受到与年龄相关的下降（Nicholls＆English，2020）的影响，可以通过优先级训练来提高（Allen等，2021）。但是，我们现在需要全面调查策略，以了解哪些可以很好地工作，以及在日常任务中为谁以及与哪些相关的大脑活动模式。我们拟议的研究将纳入认知和老化研究中最新的理论和方法论发展，以及与社区以及自愿，临床和公共部门的目标用户群体以及共同设计。我们的第一组研究将涉及基于实验室的传统，基于实验室的实验，以根据经过验证的协议来衡量现实世界中短期和长期记忆任务的性能。将要求年轻人和老年人记住在现实的虚拟场景中呈现的物体（例如，厨房工作台上的黄色茶壶）。我们将全面建立他们报告的策略范围，并评估与内存性能的关系。然后，我们将使用以前曾与老年人一起验证的“体验抽样”方法随着时间的推移调查策略和认知表现。这涉及通过智能手机在日常生活中的日常参与，并将由于人格和精神福祉等因素而进一步建立变化。最后，我们将评估培训年轻和老年人使用早期工作中出现的两种最佳候选策略的影响。我们还将跟踪与策略和认知表现相关的眼动运动，并采用创新，具有成本效益和非侵入性方法来建立相关的大脑功能模式。我们将提供有关认知和认知衰老的重要新见解，同时开发可及，可及性，可扩展性和成本效益的方法来支持现实世界中的认知。在整个过程中，我们将吸引我们的利益相关者（例如，基于社区的老年人，NHS Lanarkshire，苏格兰政府年龄平等网络，苏格兰老年人大会，U3A）和独立的专家学术小组。我们将通过学术出版物和会议分享我们的发现，以及广泛的公共参与活动，最终涉及为利益相关者和利益相关者开发的“战略工具包”。这将提供有关认知和认知衰老的最先进，易于访问，基于证据的指南以及资源，以及如何使用策略来支持日常运作。