The study of cognitive change across a life span, both in pathological and healthy samples, has been heavily influenced by developments in cognitive psychology as a theoretical paradigm, neuropsychology and other bio-medical fields; this alongside the increase in new longitudinal and cohort designs, complemented in the last decades by the evaluation of experimental interventions. Here, a review of aging databases was conducted, looking for the most relevant studies carried out on cognitive functioning in healthy older adults. The aim was to review not only longitudinal, cross-sectional or cohort studies, but also by intervention program evaluations. The most important studies, searching for long-term patterns of stability and change of cognitive measures across a life span and in old age, have shown a great range of inter-individual variability in cognitive functioning changes attributed to age. Furthermore, intellectual functioning in healthy individuals seems to decline rather late in life, if ever, as shown in longitudinal studies where age-related decline of cognitive functioning occurs later in life than indicated by cross-sectional studies. The longitudinal evidence and experimental trials have shown the benefits of aerobic physical exercise and an intellectually engaged lifestyle, suggesting that bio-psycho-socioenvironmental factors concurrently with age predict or determine both positive or negative change or stability in cognition in later life.

中文翻译：

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健康老龄化中的认知

对病理和健康样本中整个生命周期认知变化的研究，深受作为理论范式的认知心理学、神经心理学和其他生物医学领域发展的影响；与此同时，新的纵向和队列设计也在不断增加，并在过去几十年中通过实验干预措施的评估得到补充。在这里，对老龄化数据库进行了审查，寻找对健康老年人认知功能进行的最相关的研究。目的不仅是回顾纵向、横断面或队列研究，还包括干预计划评估。最重要的研究旨在寻找整个生命周期和老年时认知测量的稳定性和变化的长期模式，这些研究表明，由于年龄而导致的认知功能变化存在很大的个体间差异。此外，健康个体的智力功能似乎在生命后期就会出现衰退（如果有的话），纵向研究表明，与年龄相关的认知功能衰退发生的时间比横断面研究显示的要晚。纵向证据和实验试验表明有氧体育锻炼和智力生活方式的好处，表明生物心理社会环境因素与年龄同时预测或决定晚年认知的积极或消极变化或稳定性。