This is the closest possible sample in the UK to being truly population representative in nature since registration with GP is nearly universal in the UK’s socialised health care system. In Stage 1, the sampling frame is the primary care population list of residents in particular geographical areas. See Figure 1 for an overview of study recruitment and participation. This will enable us to understand the real world implications of neural resilience, and to create targeted interventions that link everyday lifestyle choices to neural flexibility and cognitive health. Finally, we will link cognitive and neuroimaging measures to epidemiological measures of demographic background, physical and mental health, and a range of lifestyle and life experience measures. We predict that preserved cognition across the lifespan depends on maintaining effective neural flexibility in the context of the extensive neural change associated with normal ageing. Key to testing hypotheses about neural flexibility are measures of structural and functional connectivity. We will use multivariate neuroimaging methods to test predictions about the neural and cognitive variables that predict successful cognitive ageing. Our analysis approach is likewise interactive, with our major hypotheses based on the relationships between different measures. ![]() These stages are designed to be integrative rather than progressive or separate. Three main stages to the project are described below and in Figure 1. By providing concrete links between cognitive neuroscience and everyday outcome measures, our approach will help drive targeted interventions. This approach of sampling widely across individuals and employing deep phenotyping is critical for understanding the potentially complex interactions between brain, cognition, demographic and lifestyle factors that underpin successful cognitive ageing. We employ stratified sampling known from geographical populations, and combine demographic and lifestyle assessment with a wide range of cognitive and neural measures. We take a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the relationship of neural flexibility to cognitive success. Despite promising findings, there has been little systematic examination of the role of neural flexibility across the lifespan which could help us to understand the nature of successful cognitive ageing and how best to support it. This hypothesis is grounded in a growing number of findings demonstrating that older adults’ brains can remain flexible despite structural decline, and that this flexibility can help support successful cognition into old age. The Cam-CAN protocol has been developed to provide a comprehensive and theoretically-motivated examination of the hypothesis that preserved cognition across the lifespan depends on the brain remaining functionally flexible. The aim of the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) project is to identify the neural mechanisms underpinning successful cognitive ageing. ![]() Growing older involves changes to most aspects of our lives, but one of the most important changes is to our mental or cognitive health. ![]() , it is increasingly important to understand how we can age healthily. This approach offers hypothesis-driven insights into the relationship between brain and behaviour in healthy ageing that are relevant to the general population.Īs greater numbers of us are living longer e.g. Taken together the three stages provide deep phenotyping that will allow us to measure neural activity and flexibility during performance across a number of core cognitive functions. A subset of 280 adults return for in-depth neurocognitive assessment in Stage 3, using functional neuroimaging experiments across our key cognitive domains.įormal statistical models will be used to examine the changes that occur with healthy ageing, and to evaluate age-related reorganisation in terms of cognitive and neural functions invoked to compensate for overall age-related brain structural decline. Cognition is assessed across multiple domains including attention and executive control, language, memory, emotion, action control and learning. Of those interviewed, 700 participants aged 18-87 (100 per age decile) continue to Stage 2 where they undergo cognitive testing and provide measures of brain structure and function. We are recruiting a population-based cohort of 3000 adults aged 18 and over into Stage 1 of the project, where they complete an interview including health and lifestyle questions, a core cognitive assessment, and a self-completed questionnaire of lifetime experiences and physical activity.
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