Cognitive impairment is an emerging public health issue. Today, attention is
focused on disease-promoting risk factors: some are well confirmed in the
literature, while others still need to be further explored. Among them,
nutrition, sleep, physical activity, behavioral and psychophysiological
underpinnings of affordances and dispositional factors are increasingly
investigated. In this scenario, there is the need for a comprehensive approach
explaining the close intertwining of body and cognition in aging, and to
exploit statistical approaches emphasizing complex relationships between
risk factors and neuropsychological functioning.
TEMPO aims at addressing those challenges by proposing a 2-year project
involving 2 Research Units (RU1-RU2), in order to identify risk factors for
cognitive decline thanks to a framework rooted on embodied cognition and
supported by Network Analysis. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the
strategic emerging topic of PNRR regarding Human Well Being, by
preventing disease and favoring evidence-based health policies in
contemporary day-to-day challenges.
The project will be divided into 6 Work Packages (WP1; WP2; WP3; WP4;
WP5; WP6). WP1 will consist in project management and team building,
while WP2 will employ a citizen science approach to recruit participants and
track their anamnestic risk factors already confirmed by the literature.
Eligible volunteers, equally subdivided into healthy and MCI elderly
subjects, will undergo a 2-day testing.
During the first day of testing (WP3), all participants will receive a
neuropsychological assessment and an evaluation of the risk factors under
investigation: nutrition, sleep, physical activity, dispositional optimism and
trait emotional intelligence. During the second day of testing (WP4),
participants will perform an embodied cognition task with simultaneous
electroencephalographic (EEG) recording, with the aim of tracking
behavioral and psychophysiological underpinnings of affordances, which
will be treated as potential risk factors and early markers for disembodiment
in aging.
Finally, in WP5 the data obtained in WP2, WP3 and WP4 will be processed
through Network Analysis in order to explore how psychophysiological
variables and life-style modifiable risk relate to neuropsychological
functioning in both healthy and MCI elderly. WP6 will be dedicated to the
dissemination and communication of results at local, national and
international levels, using social media, public-engagement and exploitation
of the scientific results.
In conclusion, the TEMPO project will support evidence-based targeted
strategies for measuring, monitoring and intervening on risky habits
associated with cognitive deterioration, even years before the onset of any
symptoms. Moreover, it will impact knowledge improvement, environment
quality, economic sustainability and technological innovation