New Views of Mind/Brain Aging

Darlene V. Howard, Ph.D.

Georgetown University
Davis Family Distinguished Professor, Emerita
howardd@georgetown.edu

National Press Foundation

October 18, 2017

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 Roadmap
A fine time to be old

The aging mind & brain

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 A fine time to be old . . . .
There are a lot of us

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 A fine time to be old . . . .
There are a lot of us
Camaraderie
Political clout
Opportunity to redefine what it means to be old
Technology
Will help us to maintain independence
Facilitate contact with distant loved ones
Society more accepting of diversity
Universal access
New discoveries about the aging mind & brain

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 The Old View
1 All cognitive functions decline with aging

2 Old brains operate the same way as young, only less

efficiently

3 There is nothing we can do about age-related

declines

4 Alzheimers disease is just accelerated aging, and

there is little hope of conquering it

NONE OF THE ABOVE IS CORRECT

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The New View . . .

1-Cognitive loss is selective

some components decline
but others dont
people differ

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 Cognitive loss is selective: some abilities decline but
others improve, and people differ
Good

Poor

Other good news abilities:

Solving interpersonal and real-world problems
Delaying rewards in decision making (including financial)
Regulating emotions

Data from Park et al (2002) 7

 People Differ
Fast

Speed

Slow

Salthouse, Psychological Review, 1996

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 Regulating Emotion:
Happiness & Depression Curves
http://www.economist.com/node/17722567

Just google happiness curve

Often called subjective well-being

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 "This is the best time of my life. I love being
old. . . . Because I am more myself than I
have ever been. There is less conflict. . . I
am surer of what my life is all about, have
less self-doubt to conquer.
May Sarton At seventy: A journal

So . . . cognitive loss is selective

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 The New View . . .

2-Old brains often do things differently

from young
Brain loss is selective
The brain seems to adapt to its own aging
Lifelong neural plasticityexperience
dependent

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Brain Loss: Also Selective

Naftali Raz
Wayne State

Kristen Kennedy
U T Dallas

Karen Rodrigue
U T Dallas

Raz et al Cerebral Cortex (2005)

 Old brains often do things differently from young

Data from Braver et al 2009

D
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Is bilateral activation good or bad?
Debate on this,
but evidence indicates is often good
Older people with bilateral show better memory
performance
Temporarily lesioning the second hemisphere often
hurts memory performance
Lesion via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
TMS demonstration:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/psych/psychsci2/content/activities/ch04a.asp#movie

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 Lifelong Neural Plasticity
Normal aging doesnt lead to loss of neurons
Throughout life, we can grow
new blood vessels (angiogenesis)
new connections among neurons (synaptogenesis)
new neurons (neurogenesis)
Hippocampus
This lifelong neural plasticity is experience
dependent

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 The New View . . .

3-We can do a lot to slow or prevent

age-related declines

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Promoting Healthy Cognitive/Brain Aging
Brain games (typically computer-based)
Social engagement
Diet
Physical exercise
Lifelong bilingualism
Meditation
Taking on new learning (e.g., photography, new
language)
Teaching & practicing reasoning skills
Attitudes toward aging

Best documented so far????

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 Aerobic Exercise
Typical clinical trial type study
sedentary older adults (age 60-79)
All get exercise class
3 days per week, 45 min/day, 6 months (or more)
based on 2008 DHHS Physical Activity Guidelines
Randomly assigned to two groups
Aerobic (walking)
Anaerobic (stretching and toning)
Cognitive/Brain Measures (before, during, after training)
Gray and white matter volume
Brain activations
Cognitive functions (e.g., working memory, executive function)
Findings: Aerobic improves more than the anaerobic

Data from Erickson et al (2011) University of Pittsburgh

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 Experience Corps
(Social Engagement?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrTJDXW0_0I&feature=related
Description of EC

http://coah.jhu.edu/research/projects/Experience_Corps_pages/
Baltimores EC Home Page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxN47eKtB88&feature=related
Advantages for older adults

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 2 year-long
randomized clinical
trial with 111
participants

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 Clinical Trials of Lifestyle Changes
Growing number of studies showing effects on
task performance
brain function and structure
subsequent lifestyle changes
Exciting because of broad advantages for
individual and society
But . . .
Hard to know what is causing changesoften loose
controls
Very expensive to conduct
Can be hard to get funded

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NAP.EDU

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 The New View . . .

4-Alzheimers Disease (AD) isnt just

accelerated aging, and we can do a lot
to delay the onset of symptoms

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 AD isnt just accelerated aging
Different patterns of brain loss in aging & AD
loss of neurons in AD, but not normal aging
different pattern of brain changes
The bad news
Drug trials continue to be discouraging
Treatment starting too late in disease?
Brain pathology (plaques & tangles) starts decades before any
cognitive symptoms appear
New drug trials trying to target earlier before cognitive symptoms
Some good news
Lifestyle matters
Incidence of dementia

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Good news: Lifestyle factors matter
(Some?) lifestyle factors that promote healthy
cognitive aging may delay the symptoms
and/or brain pathology of AD
E.g., attitudes toward aging, lifelong bilingualism

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 Attitudes and AD Biomarkers

Becca Levy

Participants: All dementia free at baseline neuroimaging test

Methods:
Measured Age stereotypes in 1968
Attitudes toward old people scale, e.g., Old people are absent-minded.
Collected brain measures over subsequent decades
Hippocampal brain volume via MRI (yearly up to 10 times)
Plaques & tangles (via brain autopsy after death)biomarkers for Alzheimers disease
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 N=158
Those w/ negative stereotypes had
steeper decline in hippocampal
volume
3 times rate of decline compared to
those w/positive stereotypes
adjusting for age, sex, education,
self-rated health, well-being,
number of chronic conditions, and
intracranial volume.
Limitation:
correlational
N=74
Those w/ negative stereotypes
had significantly higher
composite-plaques-and-tangles
scores
adjusting for age, sex, education,
self-rated health, well-being, and
number of chronic conditions
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 Good news: Dementia Incidence
The incidence of dementia has declined over
the past 3 decades Cumula ve Hazard Rates for Demen a
(# per 100 people)
4
3.5
3
2.5
2016
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1970's 1980's 1990's 2000's

44% decline in incidence over last 3

decades
only among those with at least a high
school diploma
we dont know why

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 The New View
1 Cognitive/brain loss is selective
some components decline but others dont
people differ

2 Old brains often do things differently from young

brain loss is also selective
the brain seems to adapt to its own aging
lifelong neural plasticityexperience dependent

3 We can do a lot to slow or prevent age-related declines

Lifestyle matters

4 Alzheimers disease isnt just accelerated aging, and we can do a lot to

slow the onset of symptoms
Though a long way to go

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 Thank you &
congratulations!!g

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Extra Slides Follow

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 Suggestion for general psychology reading: Current
Directions in Psychological Science

Short (3-4 pages) reviews by leading researchers

A journal of the Association for Psychological Science

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 Population Pyramids
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-population-pyramid

1950
1995 2050

65-year-olds 85-year-olds 35
 Characteristics of Cognitive Aging
What declines?
Speed
Long-term memory & learning (most kinds)
Executive control/working memory
Word finding/retrieval

What is spared/improved?
Vocabulary & world knowledge
Some aspects of problem solving & decision making
Interpersonal & ill-defined problems
Inter-temporal decision making, e.g., delaying reward
Emotional regulation

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 2003, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology

Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)

Two studies:
Writings produced by 3000 research participants ranging in age
from 8-85 (cross-sectional)
Writings of 10 novelists/playwrights/poets over past 500 years

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With increasing age found . . . .
Fewer self-references
More future-tense & fewer past-tense verbs
More positive & fewer negative affect words

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 Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI)

http://adni.loni.usc.edu/study-design/background-rationale/ 39