UC Davis researcher receives grant to study perceived cognitive aging

University of California, Davis Professor of Neurology Sarah Tomaszewski Farias has been awarded a $3.3 million five-year grant from The National Institute on Aging to study if cultural differences affect how people perceive cognitive changes as they age. This perceived cognitive aging is referred to as subjective cognitive decline (SCD).

"Subjective cognitive decline is when an older person feels their cognition is getting worse, but when we test them using neuropsychological tests, they're still performing within the normal range," explained Tomaszewski Farias, a leader in studying cognitive decline in older adults.

There was a lot of clinical lore around what we used to call the 'worried well.' These were people that had cognitive complaints but did fine on cognitive testing. It was thought that they were depressed or anxious and often their complaints were dismissed."

However, studies have shown that SCD can be a risk factor to developing more objective cognitive decline. That includes potentially mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's dementia. Current SCD research suffers from three main issues: