Sleep-dependent prospective memory consolidation is impaired with aging

Abstract Study Objectives Existing literature suggests that sleep-dependent memory consolidation is impaired in older adults but may be preserved for personally relevant information. Prospective memory (PM) involves remembering to execute future intentions in a timely manner and has behavioural importance. As previous work suggests that N3 sleep is important for PM in young adults, we investigated if the role of N3 sleep in PM consolidation would be maintained in older adults. Methods 49 young adults (mean age±SD:21.8±1.61 years) and 49 healthy older adults (mean age±SD:65.7±6.30 years) were randomized into sleep and wake groups. After a semantic categorization task, participants encoded intentions comprising 4 related and 4 unrelated cue-action pairs. They were instructed to remember to perform these actions in response to cue words presented during a second semantic categorization task 12h later that encompassed either daytime wake (09:00-21:00) or overnight sleep with polysomnography (21:00-09:00). Results The significant condition x age group x relatedness interaction suggested that the sleep benefit on PM intentions varied according to age group and relatedness (p=0.01). For related intentions, sleep relative to wake benefitted young adults’ performance (p<0.001) but not older adults (p = 0.30). For unrelated intentions, sleep did not improve PM for either age group. While post-encoding N3 was significantly associated with related intentions’ execution in young adults (r=0.43, p=0.02), this relationship was not found for older adults (r=-0.07, p=0.763). Conclusions The age-related impairment of sleep-dependent memory consolidation extends to PM. Our findings add to an existing body of work suggesting that the link between sleep and memory is functionally weakened in older adulthood.

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046 Sleep-dependent prospective memory consolidation is impaired with aging

SLEEP ◽

10.1093/sleep/zsab072.045 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 44 (Supplement_2) ◽

pp. A20-A20

Author(s):

Ruth Leong ◽

June Lo ◽

Michael Chee

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Prospective Memory ◽

Memory Consolidation ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Age Group ◽

Categorization Task ◽

Semantic Categorization ◽

Age Related ◽

Sleep Benefit

Abstract Introduction Existing literature suggests that sleep-dependent memory consolidation is impaired in older adults but may be preserved for personally relevant information. Prospective memory (PM) involves remembering to execute future intentions in a timely manner and has behavioural importance. As previous work suggests that N3 sleep is important for PM in young adults, we investigated if the role of N3 sleep in PM consolidation would be maintained in older adults. Methods 49 young adults (mean age±SD: 21.8±1.61 years) and 49 healthy older adults (mean age±SD: 65.7±6.30 years) were randomized into sleep and wake groups. After a semantic categorization task, participants encoded intentions comprising 4 related and 4 unrelated cue-action pairs. They were instructed to remember to perform these actions in response to cue words presented during a second semantic categorization task 12h later that encompassed either daytime wake (09:00-21:00) or overnight sleep with polysomnography (21:00-09:00). Results The significant condition x age group x relatedness interaction suggested that the sleep benefit on PM intentions varied according to age group and relatedness (p=0.01). For related intentions, sleep relative to wake benefitted young adults’ performance (p<0.001) but not older adults (p=0.30). For unrelated intentions, sleep did not improve PM for either age group. While post-encoding N3 was significantly associated with related intentions’ execution in young adults (r=0.43, p=0.02), this relationship was not found for older adults (r=-0.07, p=0.763). Conclusion The age-related impairment of sleep-dependent memory consolidation extends to prospective memory. Our findings add to an existing body of work suggesting that the link between sleep and memory is functionally weakened in older adulthood. Support (if any) This work was supported by the National Medical Research Council, Singapore (NMRC/STaR/015/2013) and the National Research Foundation, Singapore (NRF2016_SOL002).

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Directed connectivity between primary and premotor areas underlying ankle force control in young and older adults

10.1101/804450 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Meaghan Elizabeth Spedden ◽

Mikkel Malling Beck ◽

Mark Schram Christensen ◽

Martin Jensen Dietz ◽

Anke Ninija Karabanov ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Force Control ◽

Coupling Strength ◽

Empirical Bayes ◽

Premotor Cortex ◽

Force Production ◽

Age Group ◽

Compensatory Mechanisms ◽

Age Related

AbstractThe control of ankle muscle force is an integral component of walking and postural control. Aging impairs the ability to produce force steadily and accurately, which can compromise functional capacity and quality of life. Here, we hypothesized that reduced force control in older adults would be associated with altered cortico-cortical communication within a network comprising the primary motor area (M1), the premotor cortex (PMC), parietal, and prefrontal regions. We examined electroencephalographic (EEG) responses from fifteen younger (20-26 yr) and fifteen older (65-73 yr) participants during a unilateral dorsiflexion force-tracing task. Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM) and Parametric Empirical Bayes (PEB) were used to investigate how directed connectivity between contralateral M1, PMC, parietal, and prefrontal regions was related to age group and precision in force production. DCM and PEB analyses revealed that the strength of connections between PMC and M1 were related to ankle force precision and differed by age group. For young adults, bidirectional PMC-M1 coupling was negatively related to task performance: stronger backward M1-PMC and forward PMC-M1 coupling was associated with worse force precision. The older group exhibited deviations from this pattern. For the PMC to M1 coupling, there were no age-group differences in coupling strength; however, within the older group, stronger coupling was associated with better performance. For the M1 to PMC coupling, older adults followed the same pattern as young adults - with stronger coupling accompanied by worse performance - but coupling strength was lower than in the young group. Our results suggest that bidirectional M1-PMC communication is related to precision in ankle force production and that this relationship changes with aging. We argue that the observed age-related differences reflect compensatory mechanisms whereby older adults maintain performance in the face of declines in the sensorimotor system.

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0101 Episodic Future Thinking Triggers Age-Related Differences in Spindles and Slow Oscillations

SLEEP ◽

10.1093/sleep/zsaa056.099 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 43 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. A40-A40

Author(s):

J Diaz ◽

P Fillmore ◽

C Gao ◽

M K Scullin

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Memory Consolidation ◽

Word Count ◽

Future Thinking ◽

Future Tense ◽

Slow Oscillations ◽

The Past ◽

Age Related ◽

The Future

Abstract Introduction In young adults, sleep spindles are theorized to represent memory consolidation. Spindle density may be especially prominent when young adults encode information that has future relevance. Older adults, on the other hand, show reduced capacity for future thinking and deficits in sleep-dependent memory consolidation. To advance these literatures, we investigated whether the process of mentally simulating the future (versus remembering the past) was associated with subsequent alterations to sleep microarchitecture in young and older adults. Methods 64 healthy adults aged 18–84 completed a polysomnography adaptation night followed by two in-laboratory experimental nights. On both nights, participants completed the Modified Future Crovitz Test (MFCT) in which they mentally simulated only future events or remembered only past events (night order counterbalanced). To quantify the extent of future/past thinking, we conducted linguistics analyses on tense (future/past) using LIWC 2015 software. Results On the future-thinking night, young adults with greater future-tense MFCT scores showed significantly greater spindle density across frontal, midline, and central sites (r=.42 to r=.51), even when controlling for age, gender, and total word count (all ps < .01). The opposite was true for middle-to-older aged adults; greater future-tense MFCT scores were associated with less spindle density across midline and central sites after controlling for age, gender, and word count (r=-.44 to r=-.46, ps<.05). However, while spindle density decreased, frontal slow oscillations increased in older adults with greater future-tense MFCT scores (r=.39, p<.05). On the past-thinking night, spindle density and slow oscillations were unrelated to past-tense or future-tense MFCT scores for either age group. Conclusion Age-related deficits in memory consolidation may be due to impaired tagging of information as having future relevance, or impaired physiological responses during sleep to wake-based tagging. Addressing encoding—spindle interactions may inform why cognitive functioning declines in some adults more than others. Support Sleep Research Society Foundation

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A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN TRUST

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igz038.1775 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S477-S477

Author(s):

Phoebe E Bailey ◽

Tarren Leon

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Self Report ◽

Future Research ◽

Age Group ◽

Age Related ◽

Meta Analyses ◽

Effect Of Age

Abstract This systematic review and meta-analysis quantifies the magnitude and breadth of age-related differences in trust. Thirty-eight independent data sets met criteria for inclusion. Overall, there was a moderate effect of age group on trust (g = 0.22), whereby older adults were more trusting than young adults. Three additional meta-analyses assessed age-related differences in trust in response to varying degrees of trustworthiness. This revealed that older adults were more trusting than young adults in response to neutral (g = 0.31) and negative (g = 0.33), but not positive (g = 0.15), indicators of trustworthiness. The effect of age group on trust in response to positive and neutral cues was moderated by type of trust (financial vs. non-financial) and type of responding (self-report vs. behavioral). Older adults were more trusting than young adults in response to positive and neutral indicators of trustworthiness when trust was expressed non-financially, but not financially. There was also an age-related increase in self-reported, but not behavioral, trust in response to neutral cues. Older adults were more trusting than young adults in response to negative indicators of trustworthiness regardless of the type of trust or type of responding. The reliability of information about trustworthiness (superficial vs. genuine cues) did not moderate any effects of age on trust. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

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Differences Between Young and Older Adults in Working Memory and Performance on the Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities†

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.804891 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Larry E. Humes ◽

Gary R. Kidd ◽

Jennifer J. Lentz

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Young Adults ◽

Hearing Loss ◽

Auditory Processing ◽

Local Community ◽

Age Groups ◽

Age Group ◽

Regression Analyses ◽

Age Related

The Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities (TBAC) is a battery of auditory-discrimination tasks and speech-identification tasks that has been normed on several hundred young normal-hearing adults. Previous research with the TBAC suggested that cognitive function may impact the performance of older adults. Here, we examined differences in performance on several TBAC tasks between a group of 34 young adults with a mean age of 22.5 years (SD = 3.1 years) and a group of 115 older adults with a mean age of 69.2 years (SD = 6.2 years) recruited from the local community. Performance of the young adults was consistent with prior norms for this age group. Not surprisingly, the two groups differed significantly in hearing loss and working memory with the older adults having more hearing loss and poorer working memory than the young adults. The two age groups also differed significantly in performance on six of the nine measures extracted from the TBAC (eight test scores and one average test score) with the older adults consistently performing worse than the young adults. However, when these age-group comparisons were repeated with working memory and hearing loss as covariates, the groups differed in performance on only one of the nine auditory measures from the TBAC. For eight of the nine TBAC measures, working memory was a significant covariate and hearing loss never emerged as a significant factor. Thus, the age-group deficits observed initially on the TBAC most often appeared to be mediated by age-related differences in working memory rather than deficits in auditory processing. The results of these analyses of age-group differences were supported further by linear-regression analyses with each of the 9 TBAC scores serving as the dependent measure and age, hearing loss, and working memory as the predictors. Regression analyses were conducted for the full set of 149 adults and for just the 115 older adults. Working memory again emerged as the predominant factor impacting TBAC performance. It is concluded that working memory should be considered when comparing the performance of young and older adults on auditory tasks, including the TBAC.

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Revisiting the Age-Prospective Memory Paradox Using Laboratory and Ecological Tasks

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.691752 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Yu Wen Koo ◽

David L. Neumann ◽

Tamara Ownsworth ◽

David H. K. Shum

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Young Adults ◽

Prospective Memory ◽

Community Dwelling ◽

Cognitive Factors ◽

Future Time ◽

Age Related ◽

Community Dwelling Older Adults ◽

Age Related Changes

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to perform a planned action at a future time. Older adults have shown moderate declines in PM, which are thought to be driven by age-related changes in the prefrontal cortex. However, an age-PM paradox is often reported, whereby deficits are evident in laboratory-based PM tasks, but not naturalistic PM tasks. The key aims of this study were to: (1) examine the age-PM paradox using the same sample across laboratory and ecological settings; and (2) determine whether self-reported PM and cognitive factors such as working memory and IQ are associated PM performance. Two PM tasks were administered (ecological vs. laboratory) to a sample of 23 community-dwelling older adults (Mage = 72.30, SDage = 5.62) and 28 young adults (Mage = 20.18, SDage = 3.30). Participants also completed measures of general cognitive function, working memory, IQ, and self-reported memory. Our results did not support the existence of the age-PM paradox. Strong age effects across both laboratory and ecological PM tasks were observed in which older adults consistently performed worse on the PM tasks than young adults. In addition, PM performance was significantly associated with self-reported PM measures in young adults. For older adults, IQ was associated with time-based PM. These findings suggest that the age-PM paradox is more complex than first thought and there are differential predictors of PM performance for younger and older adults.

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Determining the Underlying Relationship Between Swallowing and Maximum Vocal Pitch Elevation: A Preliminary Study of Their Hyoid Biomechanics in Healthy Adults

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00125 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (10) ◽

pp. 3408-3418

Author(s):

Anumitha Venkatraman ◽

Robert Brinton Fujiki ◽

Bruce A. Craig ◽

M. Preeti Sivasankar ◽

Georgia A. Malandraki

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Healthy Adults ◽

Age Group ◽

Age Related ◽

Vocal Pitch ◽

Preliminary Study ◽

Muscle Changes ◽

Underlying Mechanisms ◽

Moderate Positive Correlation

Purpose Deficiencies in swallowing (aspiration) and in maximum vocal pitch elevation have been shown to correlate in dysphagia. However, the underlying mechanisms that may explain this relationship are not known. In this study, we compare hyoid kinematics between swallowing and maximum vocal pitch elevation in healthy adults. Method Ten young ( M = 21 ± 1.33 years) and eight older ( M = 72.85 ± 5.59 years) healthy adults completed trials of maximum vocal pitch elevation (vowels /a/ and /i/) and swallowing (thin liquid and pudding) under videofluoroscopy. Superior and anterior hyoid excursions were obtained using kinematic analysis. Two-way analyses of variance and Spearman rho correlations were used to examine differences and relationships between swallowing and maximum pitch elevation biomechanics. Results Superior hyoid excursion was significantly greater for liquid swallows compared to pitch elevation tasks (/a/ and /i/; p = .002; Cohen's d = 1.28; p = .0179, Cohen's d = 1.03, respectively) and for pudding swallows compared to pitch tasks ( p = .000, Cohen's d = 1.64; p = .001, Cohen's d = 1.38, respectively). Anterior hyoid excursion was not significantly different between the two functions, but was overall reduced in the older group ( p = .0231, Cohen's d = .90). Furthermore, there was a moderate positive correlation between the degree of superior excursion during liquid swallows and maximum pitch elevation for both vowels ( r s = .601, p = .001; r s = .524, p = .003) in young adults, and between the degree of anterior excursion during liquid swallows and pitch elevation for both vowels ( r s = .688, p = .001; r s = .530, p = .008) in older adults. Conclusions Swallowing and maximum pitch elevation require similar anterior, but not superior, hyoid excursion in healthy adults. Differential correlations between the two tasks for each age group may be associated with age-related muscle changes. We provide evidence of partially shared biomechanics between swallowing and maximum pitch elevation.

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make a telephone call once a day for 5 days when they the two paradigms. Specifically, the exact motoric re-associated the activity with other routine daily events quirements of many naturally occurring intentions (so-called "conjunction" cues) than when internal or (e.g., "buy birthday present") may not be sufficiently other external cues (e.g., diaries) were used. The exact well specified at encoding (or throughout the role of daily structure in the fulfilment of delayed retention interval), to allow the representation of these intention tasks in young and older adults remains to be activities to benefit from the kind of preparatory established, however, particularly as Maylor's study did processing that we have argued supports the not include a comparison of the use and effectiveness representation of more well-defined (laboratory-based) of conjunction cues between these two age groups. It actions. Indeed, not all naturally occurring intentions is interesting to note in this regard that an attempt has involve action-based responses. Some of the activities been made to enhance older adults' prospective memory generated by participants in the prospective and performance in a laboratory setting by using tasks that retrospective fluency tasks, for example, could be are intended to mimic the richness and structure of daily classified as involving primarily verbal responses life events (e.g., Rendell & Craik, 2000). Age-related (e.g., to have a conversation with someone or to pass declines have still been obtained under these conditions, on a message), while others represent purely thought-however, perhaps because the tasks are not readily able based or cognitive tasks (e.g., "choose holiday to capture or recreate the familiarity and personal destination"). The exact role of preparatory motoric relevance of the individuals' own routines. processing in successful prospective remembering remains to be established, however, as laboratory Intention-superiority effects for naturally studies of the ISE have typically used experimenter-occurring and laboratory activities initiated retrieval, which removes the need for participants to remember to carry out the actions for The current findings reveal a clear age-associated themselves when a designated retrieval context impairment in the ability to access naturally occurring arrives. intentions in a speeded fluency task undertaken during the retention interval between intention formation and Conclusion completion. This is in contrast to the findings of Freeman and Ellis (in press-b), which demonstrated an equivalent In summary, this study revealed a clear age-related de-advantage for to-be-enacted laboratory-based actions cline in the ability to access intention representations over actions not intended for enactment in young and prior to completion, with more intended activities failing healthy older adults. We have argued elsewhere (e.g., to come to mind in the prospective fluency task for older Freeman & Ellis, in press-a) that there may be similarities adults than for young adults. There was no apparent between the advantage for to-be-enacted laboratory-age difference in the inaccessibility (or inhibition) of based actions and the advantage that is frequently already completed intentions, however, with both age observed for verbally presented action words that have groups demonstrating evidence of an intention-been enacted during encoding (the subject-performed completion effect. Despite reduced intention task effect; Cohen, 1981). More specifically, the accessibility during the retention interval, older adults intention-superiority effect for simple motor actions reported having carried out more of their intended intended for enactment after a short delay might reflect activities during the week than did young adults. the operation of covert motoric or SPT-type encoding Interestingly, this appeared to be the case primarily for or rehearsal operations aimed at preparing these actions intentions for which no specific retrieval aids had been for imminent execution. These could include operations used. One possibility is that older adults may for setting the parameters of the action schema to be compensate for impaired intention accessibility by executed in terms of its duration, direction, and force. relying more on the ongoing sequence of daily routine The absence of an age difference in the accessibility of events to support intention retrieval and execution. This laboratory-based intentions mirrors the finding of is consistent with the observation of an age-related reduced age-related declines in memory for SPTs and increase in the temporal organization of activities pro-suggests that covert motoric processing may be duced in the prospective fluency task. In line with this, undertaken relatively automatically for this type of while there was a correlation between intention acces-material. sibility and intention completion in young adults, sug-The apparent discrepancy between age differences gesting a role for the intention-superiority effect in in the ISE for naturally occurring and experimental prospective memory performance in this population, intentions might therefore reflect a fundamental there was no evidence of this relationship among older difference in the nature of the activities involved in adults.

Prospective Memory: The Delayed Realization of Intentions ◽

10.4324/9780203506752-9 ◽

2003 ◽

pp. 34-34

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Retention Interval ◽

Prospective Memory ◽

Age Difference ◽

Superiority Effect ◽

Naturally Occurring ◽

Age Related ◽

Fluency Task

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A systematic review and meta-analysis of age-related differences in trust

10.31219/osf.io/we7vh ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Phoebe E Bailey ◽

Tarren Leon

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Self Report ◽

Future Research ◽

Age Group ◽

Age Related ◽

Meta Analyses ◽

Effect Of Age

This systematic review and meta-analysis quantifies the magnitude and breadth of age-related differences in trust. Thirty-eight independent data sets met criteria for inclusion. Overall, there was a moderate effect of age group on trust (g = 0.22), whereby older adults were more trusting than young adults. Three additional meta-analyses assessed age-related differences in trust in response to varying degrees of trustworthiness. This revealed that older adults were more trusting than young adults in response to neutral (g = 0.31) and negative (g = 0.33), but not positive (g = 0.15), indicators of trustworthiness. The effect of age group on trust in response to positive and neutral cues was moderated by type of trust (financial vs. non-financial) and type of responding (self-report vs. behavioral). Older adults were more trusting than young adults in response to positive and neutral indicators of trustworthiness when trust was expressed non-financially, but not financially. There was also an age-related increase in self-reported, but not behavioral, trust in response to neutral cues. Older adults were more trusting than young adults in response to negative indicators of trustworthiness regardless of the type of trust or type of responding. The reliability of information about trustworthiness did not moderate any of the effects of age group on trust. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

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Knowledge guides attention to goal-relevant information in older adults

Cognitive Research Principles and Implications ◽

10.1186/s41235-021-00321-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Maverick E. Smith ◽

Lester C. Loschky ◽

Heather R. Bailey

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Free Recall ◽

Episodic Memory ◽

Age Groups ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Semantic Knowledge ◽

Attention And Memory ◽

Everyday Activities ◽

Age Related

AbstractHow does viewers’ knowledge guide their attention while they watch everyday events, how does it affect their memory, and does it change with age? Older adults have diminished episodic memory for everyday events, but intact semantic knowledge. Indeed, research suggests that older adults may rely on their semantic memory to offset impairments in episodic memory, and when relevant knowledge is lacking, older adults’ memory can suffer. Yet, the mechanism by which prior knowledge guides attentional selection when watching dynamic activity is unclear. To address this, we studied the influence of knowledge on attention and memory for everyday events in young and older adults by tracking their eyes while they watched videos. The videos depicted activities that older adults perform more frequently than young adults (balancing a checkbook, planting flowers) or activities that young adults perform more frequently than older adults (installing a printer, setting up a video game). Participants completed free recall, recognition, and order memory tests after each video. We found age-related memory deficits when older adults had little knowledge of the activities, but memory did not differ between age groups when older adults had relevant knowledge and experience with the activities. Critically, results showed that knowledge influenced where viewers fixated when watching the videos. Older adults fixated less goal-relevant information compared to young adults when watching young adult activities, but they fixated goal-relevant information similarly to young adults, when watching more older adult activities. Finally, results showed that fixating goal-relevant information predicted free recall of the everyday activities for both age groups. Thus, older adults may use relevant knowledge to more effectively infer the goals of actors, which guides their attention to goal-relevant actions, thus improving their episodic memory for everyday activities.

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