New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging

Description

*Unique in providing interdisciplinary coverage of the effects of
aging on our cognitive capabilities

*Focuses on future developments, rather than past achievements

*Includes commentaries from the U.S National Institute on Aging and
describes the implications for its future policy

With an ever increasing population of aging people in the western
world, it is more crucial than ever that we try to understand how and
why cognitive competence breaks down with advancing age; why do some
people follow normal patterns of cognitive change, while others
follow a path of progressive decline, with neurodegenerative diseases
such as Alzheimer's. What can be done to prevent cognitive decline -
or to avoid neurodegenerative diseases? The answers, if they come,
will not emerge from research within one discipline, but from work
being done across a range of scientific and medical specialities.

This volume brings together leading experts from a range of fields
studying cognitive aging, including neuroscience, pharmacology,
health, genetics, sensory biology, and epidemiology. Unlike other
books in this area, this book is more about 'new frontiers' than past
research and accomplishments. Recently cognitive aging research has
taken several new directions, linking with, and benefiting from,
rapid technological and theoretical advances in these neighbouring
disciplines. This book provides unique interdisciplinary coverage of
the topic. With each chapter including commentaries from specialists
in related fields, the book provides an integrative study of the
topic. For those within the fields of psychology, cognitive
neuroscience, and geriatrics, this volume will make an important
contribution in furthering our understanding of a problem that
affects us all.






-Contents-


Part I - Frontiers in Cognitive Aging

1 Roger A Dixon & Lars-Goran Nilsson: Don't fence us in: Probing the
frontiers of cognitive aging

Part II - New Theoretical Orientations in Cognitive Aging
2 Denise Park & Meredith Minear: Cognitive aging: New directions for
old theories
3 Christopher Hertzog: Does longitudinal evidence confirm theories of
cognitive aging derived from cross-sectional data?
4 David F Hultsch & Stuart W S MacDonald: Intraindividual variability
in performance as a theoretical window onto cognitive aging
5 Leah Light: Commentary: Measures, constructs, models and inferences
about aging

Part III - New Directions in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging
6 Naftali Raz: The aging brain: Structural changes and their
implications for cognitive aging
7 Lars Nyberg & Lars Backman: Cognitive aging: A view from brain
imaging
8 Lars Backman, Brent Small & Laura Fratiglioni: Cognitive deficits
in preclinical Alzheimer's Disease: Current knowledge and future
directions
9 Roberto Cabeza: Commentary: Neuroscience frontiers of cognitive
aging: Approaches to cognitive neuroscience of aging

Part IV - Frontiers of Biological and Health Effects of Cognitive
Aging
10 Ulman Lindenberger & Paolo Ghisletta: Modelling longitudinal
changes in old age: from co-variance structures to dynamic systems
11 Helen Christensen & Andrew Mackinnon: Exploring the relationships
between sensory, physiological, genetic and health measures in
relation to the common cause hypothesis
12 Nancy L Pedersen: New frontiers in genetic influences on cognitive
aging
13 Agneta Herlitz & Julie E Yonker: Hormonal effects on cognition in
adults
14 Ake Wahlin: Health, disease and cognitive functioning in old age
15 Peter Graf: Broadening the context of cognitive aging: a commentary
16 Paul Verhaeghen: Commentary: Framing fearful (a)symmetries: three
hard questions about cognitive aging

Part V - Final Frontiers? New Research Directions, Perspectives and
Imperatives
17 Daniel B Berch & Molly V Wagster: Future directions in cognitive
aging: Perspectives from the National I