The Aging Mind: Opportunities in Cognitive Research

May 12, 2008

Read "The Aging Mind: Opportunities in Cognitive Research" online, free. The National Academies Press releases more than 3,700 books online free. "The Aging Mind: Opportunities in Cognitive Research" outlines possible new breakthroughs in understanding the aging mind that can be used to benefit older people.

The book identifies key scientific advances, for example, science has learned that among older adults who do not suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, cognitive decline may depend less on loss of brain cells than on changes in the health of neurons and neural networks. Research is also showing how cognitive functioning depends on the conjunction of biology and culture. The ways older people adapt to changes in their nervous systems, and perhaps the changes themselves, are shaped by past life experiences, present living situations, changing motives, cultural expectations, and emerging technology, as well as by their physical health status and sensory-motor capabilities.

Improved understanding of how physical and contextual factors interact can help explain why some cognitive functions are impaired in aging while others are spared and why cognitive capability is impaired in some older adults and spared in others.