How neuroscience explains age-related changes in cognition: Implications for the early diagnosis of dementia

Criteria for Alzheimer's disease and preclinical dementia have been proposed recently, which include potential biomarkers of the illness. Nonetheless, the etiology of the illness remains uncertain despite consistent associations described for cerebral amyloid and hyperphosphorylated tau pathologies. As a result, further progress toward understanding age-related changes in cognition that are not related to dementia is critical both to characterize healthy aging but also to develop interventions that will sustain cognitive performance. This will be the case even if proposed biomarkers become powerful predictors of the presence of disease.