From Neuroplasticity to Scaffolding: A Giant Step for Cognitive Aging Research?

This paper is a review of cognitive aging research centred on the Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition (STAC), a theory which brings together much of the previous research into cognitive aging over the past century and suggests directions for future work. From Santiago Ramon y Cajal, with his microscope and talented drawings, to today’s researchers with psychological and neurobiological methods and technology, particularly neuroimaging techniques, such as fMRI, sMRI, PET, etc., enormous progress has been made, through cognitive reserve, dedifferentiation, compensation, hemispherical asymmetry, inhibition and neurotransmission, to the Scaffolding theory of aging and cognition and beyond. Prior to 1990, research was almost entirely behavioural, but the advent of neuroimaging has boosted research and given rise to a new domain known as cognitive neuroscience, combining behavioural and neurobiological approaches to investigate structural and functional changes in the aging brain. Having reviewed the existing literature on cognitive aging research, the author concludes that although the scaffolding theory brings together a significant body of work and ideas, it is not yet the single, unifying theory for researchers. However, it does represent a giant step toward that theory.