Cognitive Decline and Aging

Cognitive Decline and Aging – September 1-8, 2017

The interface between cognitive aging that might be considered normal and the early stages of AD has recently attracted much attention from neuroscientists and clinicians. That interface and whether one is likely to progress from cognitive decline to AD is the critical question. The Advanced Course will focus primarily on the events that lead to cognitive decline in the absence of AD, and mechanisms that might be relevant to both conditions will be thoroughly analyzed. While it is quite clear that the dementia of AD results from neuron death, particularly in circuits that mediate learning and memory, it is equally clear that age-related cognitive decline does not result from neuron death and is thus not a mild form of AD. Age-related cognitive decline appears to result primarily from synaptic alterations and other changes that affect neuronal communication in circuits mediating learning and memory that are still intact. These circuits must retain synaptic health in order to function properly, and certain events associated with aging lead to declining synaptic health.

Coordinator:John H. Morrison, University of California, Davis, USA
Faculty:  Roberta Brinton, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA; Mark Baxter, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA; Tara Spires-Jones, University of Edinburgh, UK; Jennifer Bizon, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA; Naftali Raz, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA; Ulman Lindenberger, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany