Healthy Middle-Aged Adults Have Preserved Mnemonic Discrimination and Integration, While Showing No Detectable Memory Benefits.

ABSTRACT: Declarative memory abilities change across adulthood. Semantic memory and autobiographic episodic knowledge can remain stable or even increase from mid- to late adulthood, while episodic memory abilities decline in later adulthood. Although it is well known that prior knowledge influences new learning, it is unclear whether the experiential growth of knowledge and memory traces across the lifespan may drive favorable adaptations in some basic memory processes. We hypothesized that an increased reliance on memory integration may be an adaptive mechanism to handle increased interference from accumulating memory traces and knowledge across adulthood. In turn, this may confer an improved ability for integration, observable in middle-age, before the onset of major aging-related declines. We fur

SUBMITTER: Samrani G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8819667 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature