Carol A. Barnes, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology and Neurology
University of Arizona Q: You are examining how memory processes
change with normal aging. Why focus on normal memory changes as
opposed to Alzheimer’s disease or other pathologies? A: One
reason we are interested in studying normal age-related memory
changes is that only about five percent of people over 65 have
Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The proportion increases in older age
ranges, but the fact remains that most of us will age relatively
normally and will not have a dementing illness. The question
then becomes: what is normal versus what is pathological in
terms of memory changes? To answer that, you have to first know
what is normal. Only then can you begin to assess what goes
wrong in Alzheimer’s or other dementias. That’s the approach we
have taken. My interest in separating pathology from normal also
stems partly from my fascination with the fact that only humans
get AD. No other animal gets it. What we’re studying in animal
models of memory lo