The Cognitive Changes And The Decline In Cognitive Control Function In Old Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment

Mild cognitive impairment is a clinical condition between normal aging and dementia.Cognitive control is a necessary ability for flexible allocation of mental resources in goal-oriented behavior.Some studies believe that control components have a basic commonality,attention function.However,traditional Flanker + ERP experiments examined cognitive control functions relatively,and few studies based on the attention network to explore the cognitive control function of the elderly MCI.This study explored the cognitive changes and the decline in cognitive control function in old adults with mild cognitive impairment,combining Flanker and the revised Attention Network Test.This experiment was divided into three parts.The pilot study used a set of cognitive behavior tests to find the cognitive function characteristics and deficiencies of the elderly with MCI.The results showed that the detection rate of MCI among the elderly in Shenzhen community was 22.0%.Compared with HC elderly,MCI elderly in Shenzhen community showed functional decline in memory,attention,language,executive function and spat ial cognitive domain.The memory ability of the elderly with MCI decreased significant with age.The first experiment used ERP combined with Flanker paradigm to investigate the selective attention ability of the elderly with MCI.The behavior results: the average accuracy,RT and efficiency levels of MCI elderly were significant lower than those of HC;EEG results showed that the P2 amplitude of MCI elderly in Flanker incongruent trials decreased and N2 amplitude of MCI elderly in Flanker incongruent trials increased.This result reflected that the elderly with MCI were more affected by interference and stimulation in conflict tasks,and needed more psychological resources to participate,and suggested that the elderly with MCI have cognitive control disorders which focused on selective attention.In experiment 2,the ANT-R paradigm was used to investigate which component of attention network is the cause of attention deficit in MCI elderly.In ANT-R task,the average accuracy and efficiency of MCI elderly were significant lower than those of HC.In validity by location conflict trails,the accuracy and efficiency of MCI elderly were significant lower than those of HC.Logistic regression analysis showed that Flanker's efficiency,RT and ANT-R's location index in attention executive control components were contributing factors to MCI occurrence.Through the above three parts of the study,we found that: the memory,attention,language,executive and spatial cognitive function of the elderly in Shenzhen community with MCI declined.MCI elders in Shenzhen community had cognitive control deficit which mainly focused on attention switching,and mainly reflected in the executive control components of attention network.Flanker's efficiency,RT and location index in ANT-R's attention executive control components were contributing factors to MCI occurrence.The subjects selected in this study were all in Shenzhen community,so we should use the results of this study carefully to infer.