Neuroautonomic Adaptive Resilience (NAR): The Proposal of a New Mechanism in the Context of the Neuroscience of Cognitive and Affective Aging. Definition and Operationalization

Resilience mechanisms to counteract aging and the onset of neurological and neurodegenerative diseases are becoming an increasingly central issue due to the aging of the population. Several mechanisms have been hypothesized, and in the context of cognitive resilience, the construct of cognitive reserve has attracted considerable interest. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are several possible mechanisms of resilience (e.g., motor, affective, behavioral, etc.) which interact with each other, influencing inter-individual variability in healthy and pathological aging trajectories. However, to date, central-peripheral processes have not yet been explicitly incorporated as a resilience mechanism in models of cognitive and affective aging. This perspective article therefore aims to propose a new resilience mechanism, the “Neuroautonomic Adaptive Resilience” (NAR) that implicate a flexible and efficient integration of the central and the autonomic nervous system, allowing individuals to adapt effectively to stressors throughout their lives. This perspective proposes its theoretical framework, its operationalization, and its integration with existing concepts in the field of cognitive and affective neuroscience of aging.