Cognition and Hippocampal/Cortical Systems in Aging

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The work described in this proposal represents a multidisciplinary, integrated approach to understanding the effects of normal aging in brain systems that support cognitive functions affected in humans as they age. It is focused on individual differences in cognitive decline and brain aging in hippocampal/cortical systems. Three Cores (Administrative, Animal Resource, and Bioinformatics/Data Management) serve all of the participating investigators conducting research in four projects. An important feature of the research program is the use of brain material from a common source, with neurobiological analyses conducted against the background of cognitive assessment using healthy male Long Evans rats. The broad spectrum of cognitive outcomes at older ages (24-28 mo) in this study population consists of impairment affecting 50-60% of the population, while the remaining aged cohorts fall within the range of young adults (4-6 mo). Significant progress in the current funding period has occurred in the understanding of neurocognitive aging as a functional disorder of aged rats with cognitive deficits, affecting specific encoding properties and plasticity mechanisms within the hippocampal system. Our findings demonstrate a particularly prominent effect of aging on the CAS region, an area less fully studied in aging research compared to CA1. Going forward, our work in the model will expand the scope of neural plasticity studies in other isolated pathways in the in vitro hippocampal slice. An additional highlight of our recent work is increasing support for the concept of differential adaptive aging, namely that the preservation of cognitive function is associated with adaptive neurobiological changes that distinguish those older animals from both young adults and aged rats with cognitive deficits.