Dissociating working memory and inhibition in unhealthy ageing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Dissociating working memory and inhibition deficits as a result of healthy and unhealthy ageing
IRAS ID
223672
Contact name
Stephen Badham
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Nottingham Trent University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Age-related cognitive decline has been described as a reduction in processing resources in older adults. Within this domain, three key theories are dominant: working memory (WM), inhibitory control (IC) and aged-related declines in cognitive processing speed. A key focus of psychologists in the field of cognitive ageing is to dissociate these theories, as in a large variety of circumstances, they do not offer mutually exclusive predictions. Understanding which theories apply to different tasks and processes is of paramount importance because each theory explains age-related decline via different psychophysiological mechanisms.
The project aims to use a novel paradigm which has been shown to dissociate WM and IC deficits in participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) compared to healthy older adults. Two questions will be addressed:(1) Can WM and IC deficits be dissociated in healthy older adults relative to young adults as can be shown between MCI participants and healthy older adults?
(2) What neuropsychological (via psychometric testing) and neurophysiological (via electroencephalography; EEG) mechanisms differ between participants (young adults, older adults and MCI participants) with dissociated WM and IC deficits? That is, what processes and neuroactivity are more dependent on intact WM compared to IC and vice versa?
Funding and Execution:
The project is funded by the BIAL Foundation: https://www.bial.com
The project will be using a mixture of pen and paper tasks, eye-tracking and EEG methodologies to collect data from participants comprising 50 young adults, 50 healthy older adults and 50 older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Each participant will complete a test session lasting approximately 2 hours.REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EM/0228
Date of REC Opinion
19 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion