How does measuring EEG at high altitude relate to understanding the aging brain?

I am often being asked to describe how all of my projects fit together. For those of you 'in the know', I'm not only examining brain function related to high altitude and developing the processing algorithms to do so, I'm also working on a project to measure brain function in relation to health and physical exercise.  We are currently working on the processes involved in both projects.  That is, we're figuring out how to collect reliable data that are indicators of fitness and brain function from people in settings that are outside of the experiment laboratory.

In addition to identifying procedures for collecting reliable data, we're also developing algorithms to process the data that detect the information of interest contained in the data and reject noise sources in the data.  This is where an investigation of high altitude brain function comes in handy.

An investigation of changes in brain function in relation to a mountain ascent provides the opportunity to collect data having progressively 'changed' brain function (as the climber ascends the mountain) in the space of a week.  Once these data are collected, I can sit down and create an algorithm that mines the data for features that correlate with the anoxic effects of altitude (changed brain function that relates to the fundamental operation of our brain) the following week.  It is the algorithm that is developed on these data that can be applied to data collected from the average aging person that could be sensitive and revealing of changes in the fundamental operation of the brain due to disease and aging.

What is of primary interest are brain function features contained in the EEG that relate to lasting brain function rather than temporary divergences from normal brain function such as those caused by low blood sugar, low oxygen, too much coffee, or inadequate sleep.  That said, our behavior is our brain function and if we are having a day of significantly unusual brain function, our behavior should also be affected.  Yes, I'm building an, "I'm having an off-day" detector.