Dataset Information

Spatio-Temporal Neural Changes After Task-Switching Training in Old Age.

ABSTRACT: In the present study, we aimed at examining selective neural changes after task-switching training in old age by not only considering the spatial location but also the timescale of brain activation changes (i.e., sustained/block-related or transient/trial-related timescales). We assigned a sample of 50 older adults to a task-switching training or an active single-task control group. We administered two task paradigms, either sensitive to transient (i.e., a context-updating task) or sustained (i.e., a delayed-recognition working-memory task) dynamics of cognitive control. These dynamics were captured by utilizing an appropriate event-related or block-related functional magnetic resonance imaging design. We captured selective changes in task activation during the untrained tasks after task-switching training compared to an active control group. Results revealed changes at the neural level that were not evident from only behavioral data. Importantly, neural changes in the transient-sensitive context updating task were found on the same timescale but in a different region (i.e., in the left inferior parietal lobule) than in the task-switching training task (i.e., ventrolateral PFC, inferior frontal junction, superior parietal lobule), only pointing to temporal overlap, while neural changes in the sustained-sensitive delayed-recognition task overlapped in both timescale and region with the task-switching training task (i.e., in the basal ganglia), pointing to spatio-temporal overlap. These results suggest that neural changes after task-switching training seem to be critically supported by the temporal organization of neural processing.

SUBMITTER: Dorrenbacher S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6803514 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Spatio-Temporal Neural Changes After Task-Switching Training in Old Age.

Dörrenbächer Sandra S Schütz Chiara C Woirgardt Marc M Wu C Carolyn CC Zimmer Hubert D HD Kray Jutta J

Frontiers in aging neuroscience 20191015

In the present study, we aimed at examining selective neural changes after task-switching training in old age by not only considering the spatial location but also the timescale of brain activation changes (i.e., sustained/block-related or transient/trial-related timescales). We assigned a sample of 50 older adults to a task-switching training or an active single-task control group. We administered two task paradigms, either sensitive to transient (i.e., a context-updating task) or sustained (i. ...[more]

PMID: 31680929

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Project description:One mechanism that may allow older adults to continue to successfully perform certain cognitive tasks is to allocate more resources than their younger counterparts. Most prior studies have not included individuals beyond their 70s. Here, we investigated whether compensatory increases in neural activity previously observed in cognitively high-performing young-old adults would continue into old-old age. Event-related potentials were recorded from 72 cognitively high performing subjects, aged 18 to 96 years old, while they participated in a subject-controlled novelty oddball paradigm in which they determined viewing duration of standard, target, and novel visual stimuli. Compared to young and middle-aged subjects, both young-old and old-old subjects exhibited an impairment of preliminary mismatch/match detection operations, indexed by an attenuated anterior N2 component. This may have placed a greater burden on the subsequent controlled decision-making process, indexed by the P3, necessitating the allocation of more resources. The relationship between age and resource allocation, as measured by P3 amplitude, from midlife to very old age (45-96 years old) followed an inverted u-shaped curve (quadratic function). It peaked between the late 60s and early 70s. Thereafter, there was an inverse relationship between age and resource appropriation. This relationship remained significant after controlling for differences in task performance and MMSE. Examining the size of the P3 component across different age groups suggests that although cognitively high performing adults in their early 80s exhibit a reduction in P3 amplitude, they have a relatively well-preserved capacity to appropriate resources. However, by the late 80s, there is a robust decline (relative to young-old adults) in the size of the P3. Our results indicate that when carrying out controlled processing linked to directing attention to salient events, cognitively high performers reach the boundary of their capacity, albeit relatively late in life. This limits their ability to appropriate additional resources as compensatory activity for age-related impairments in earlier visual processing, and suggests that such a mechanism does not tend to "survive" old-old age.

Dataset Information

Spatio-Temporal Neural Changes After Task-Switching Training in Old Age.

Publications

Spatio-Temporal Neural Changes After Task-Switching Training in Old Age.

Similar Datasets

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