随着老化的发生和发展,老年人的睡眠和记忆问题变得越来越突出。研究显示老年人针对程序性记忆的睡眠依赖性巩固能力受损,而针对陈述性记忆的睡眠依赖性巩固研究结果尚存分歧。此外,患有神经退行性疾病的老年人在正常老化的基础上伴有情景记忆睡眠依赖性巩固能力受损。未来研究应考虑同步采集脑电和脑成像数据,探索增龄通过睡眠影响记忆的神经通路,尝试搭建老化、睡眠以及记忆三因素的交互模型,并从睡眠对记忆巩固影响的角度提出针对老年人记忆问题的干预措施。
Along with the aging processing, the changes of sleep and sleep-dependent memory consolidation (SDC) become prominent in older adults. Although prior research indicated that the beneficial effect of sleep on procedural memory consolidation was reduced in older adults, it is still unclear whether they also show impairments on declarative memory. In addition, compared to normal controls, individuals who have neurodegeneration disorders showed impaired SDC effect on episodic memory. Future studies need to consider using both EEG and fMRI data to explore the neural pathway of aging effects on memory through sleep and to investigate the interaction among aging, sleep and memory. Also, it is important to examine the intervention effects on older adults' memory through sleep.