Perception and Reading in Aging and Alzheimer's Disease

衰老和阿尔茨海默病的感知和阅读

• 批准号: 6908756
• 负责人: GARRETT H. RIGGS
• 金额: $ 8.46万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-30 至 2010-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6908756
• 关键词: Alzheimer' s disease; age difference; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; human old age (65+); human subject; patient oriented research; psycholinguistics; reading disorder; visual perception; young adult human (21-34)

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Reading is both visual and linguistic. Visual perceptual stimuli (letters, words, and sentences) first activate cerebral cortical visual networks, then language networks. Reading should therefore be studied using an interdisciplinary approach that accounts for both visual and linguistic processes. Models of reading and its disorders have included developmental dyslexia and lesion studies. While such models have unquestionably advanced understanding of reading, they are nonetheless limited: the pathophysiologic basis of developmental dyslexia is not known, acquired alexia is often accompanied by other neurologic deficits, and lesions are rarely identical across subjects. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is another potentially informative but under-characterized model of abnormal reading. The pathophysiology is known, the progression of pathology is relatively consistent across subjects, and the disease consistently affects areas known to be involved in reading and language (particularly the supramarginal and angular gyri). There is a wealth of data on language changes in AD, and difficulty communicating (including reading written reminders and treatment instructions) exacerbates disease burden for patients and caregivers. Whether this differs from healthy aging (and if so, how) is not known. Our laboratory has extensive experience characterizing visual perceptual changes in AD, and we have shown that visual perceptual changes in AD are quantitatively different from normal aging. We now propose using refined psychophysical and linguistic methods to quantitatively evaluate the contribution of visual perceptual abnormalities to reading disorders in AD. We hypothesize that higher order deficits of visuoperceptual and linguistic function interact to create a spectrum of reading impairments in aging and Alzheimer's disease. Our approach integrates visual perception and linguistics, and we will test our hypothesis in a series of experiments to quantify the contributions of both visual and linguistic deficits to reading impairment. Our goal is to develop a new paradigm for understanding reading disorders by unifying the psychophysical and linguistic perspectives. This will lead to new methods for early detection of reading disorders in aging and AD, the diagnosis of specific impairments, and guiding new therapies. The applicant's mentors have extensive complementary expertise to guide the research project. The career development plan will facilitate the applicant's transition to an independently funded researcher by the end of the award period.

描述（由申请人提供）：阅读是视觉和语言的。视觉感知刺激（字母、单词和句子）首先激活大脑皮层视觉网络，然后激活语言网络。因此，应该使用跨学科的方法来研究阅读，同时考虑视觉和语言过程。 阅读及其障碍的模型包括发育性阅读障碍和损伤研究。虽然此类模型无疑对阅读具有先进的理解，但它们仍然受到限制：发展性阅读障碍的病理生理学基础尚不清楚，获得性失读症通常伴有其他神经缺陷，并且受试者之间的病变很少相同。 阿尔茨海默氏病（AD）是另一种可能提供信息但尚未得到充分表征的异常阅读模型。病理生理学是已知的，不同受试者的病理学进展相对一致，并且疾病持续影响已知涉及阅读和语言的区域（特别是边缘上和角回）。有大量关于 AD 语言变化的数据，沟通困难（包括阅读书面提醒和治疗说明）会加剧患者和护理人员的疾病负担。这是否与健康衰老不同（如果有，有何不同）尚不清楚。 我们的实验室在表征 AD 中的视觉感知变化方面拥有丰富的经验，并且我们已经证明 AD 中的视觉感知变化与正常衰老存在定量差异。我们现在建议使用精致的心理物理学和语言学方法来定量评估视觉感知异常对 AD 阅读障碍的影响。我们假设视觉知觉和语言功能的高阶缺陷相互作用，导致衰老和阿尔茨海默氏病的一系列阅读障碍。我们的方法整合了视觉感知和语言学，我们将通过一系列实验来检验我们的假设，以量化视觉和语言缺陷对阅读障碍的影响。我们的目标是开发一种理解阅读障碍的新范式 统一心理物理学和语言学的观点。这将带来早期检测衰老和 AD 中的阅读障碍、诊断特定障碍并指导新疗法的新方法。 申请人的导师拥有广泛的互补专业知识来指导研究项目。职业发展计划将有助于申请人在奖励期结束时过渡到独立资助的研究人员。