scholarly journals Long-term reduction of short wavelength light affects sustained attention and visuospatial working memory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Domagalik ◽  
Halszka Oginska ◽  
Ewa Beldzik ◽  
Magdalena Fafrowicz ◽  
Tadeusz Marek
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Blue Light ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Short Wavelength ◽  
Contact Lenses ◽  
Sleep Problems ◽  
Short Exposure ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Age Related

ABSTRACTThe short wavelength, i.e. blue light, is crucial for non-image forming effects such as entrainment of circadian system. Moreover, many studies showed that blue light enhances alertness and performance in cognitive tasks. However, most of scientific reports in this topic is based on studies using short exposure to blue or blue-enriched light and only few focused on the effects of its reduced transmittance, especially in longer period. The latter could potentially give insight into understanding if age-related sleep problems and cognitive decline are related to less amount of blue light reaching the retina, as our lenses become more yellow with age. In this study, we investigated the effects of prolonged blocking of blue light on cognitive functioning, in particular - sustained attention and visuospatial working memory, and sleep. We used amber contact lenses reducing transmittance of blue light by approximately 90% for the period of four weeks on a group of young, healthy participants. No changes were observed for measurements related to sleep and sleep-wake rhythm. The significant effect was shown both for sustained attention and visuospatial memory, i.e. the longer blocking the blue light lasted, the greater decrease in performance was observed. Additionally, the follow-up session was conducted (approximately one week after taking off the blue-blocking lenses) and revealed that in case of sustained attention this detrimental effect of blocking BL is fully reversible. Our findings provide evidence that prolonged reduction of BL exposure directly affects human cognitive functioning regardless of sleep-related conditions.

Shared Neural Circuits for Visuospatial Working Memory and Arithmetic in Children and Adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Anna A. Matejko ◽  
Daniel Ansari
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Arithmetic Networks ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Superior Frontal Sulcus

Abstract Visuospatial working memory (VSWM) plays an important role in arithmetic problem solving, and the relationship between these two skills is thought to change over development. Even though neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that VSWM and arithmetic both recruit frontoparietal networks, inferences about common neural substrates have largely been made by comparisons across studies. Little work has examined how brain activation for VSWM and arithmetic converge within the same participants and whether there are age-related changes in the overlap of these neural networks. In this study, we examined how brain activity for VSWM and arithmetic overlap in 38 children and 26 adults. Although both children and adults recruited the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) for VSWM and arithmetic, children showed more focal activation within the right IPS, whereas adults recruited the bilateral IPS, superior frontal sulcus/middle frontal gyrus, and right insula. A comparison of the two groups revealed that adults recruited a more left-lateralized network of frontoparietal regions for VSWM and arithmetic compared with children. Together, these findings suggest possible neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the strong relationship between VSWM and arithmetic and provide evidence that the association between VSWM and arithmetic networks changes with age.

scholarly journals Age-Related Declines in Visuospatial Working Memory Correlate With Deficits in Explicit Motor Sequence Learning

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 2744-2754 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Bo ◽  
V. Borza ◽  
R. D. Seidler
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Motor Sequence Learning ◽  
Motor Sequence ◽  
Age Related

Numerous studies have shown that older adults exhibit deficits in motor sequence learning, but the mechanisms underlying this effect remain unclear. Our recent work has shown that visuospatial working-memory capacity predicts the rate of motor sequence learning and the length of motor chunks formed during explicit sequence learning in young adults. In the current study, we evaluate whether age-related deficits in working memory explain the reduced rate of motor sequence learning in older adults. We found that older adults exhibited a correlation between visuospatial working-memory capacity and motor sequence chunk length, as we observed previously in young adults. In addition, older adults exhibited an overall reduction in both working-memory capacity and motor chunk length compared with that of young adults. However, individual variations in visuospatial working-memory capacity did not correlate with the rate of learning in older adults. These results indicate that working memory declines with age at least partially explain age-related differences in explicit motor sequence learning.

scholarly journals Preserved Contextual Cueing in Realistic Scenes in Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Pollmann ◽  
Lisa Rosenblum ◽  
Stefanie Linnhoff ◽  
Eleonora Porracin ◽  
Franziska Geringswald ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Macular Degeneration ◽  
Vision Loss ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Age Related Macular Degeneration ◽  
Contextual Cueing ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Guided Search ◽  
Age Related

Foveal vision loss has been shown to reduce efficient visual search guidance due to contextual cueing by incidentally learned contexts. However, previous studies used artificial (T among L-shape) search paradigms that prevent the memorization of a target in a semantically meaningful scene. Here, we investigated contextual cueing in real-life scenes that allow explicit memory of target locations in semantically rich scenes. In contrast to the contextual cueing deficits in artificial scenes, contextual cueing in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) did not differ from age-matched normal-sighted controls. We discuss this in the context of visuospatial working memory demands for which both eye-movement control in the presence of central vision loss and for memory-guided search may compete. Memory-guided search in semantically rich scenes may depend less on visuospatial working memory than search in abstract displays, potentially explaining intact contextual cueing in the former but not the latter. In a practical sense, our findings may indicate that Patients with AMD are less deficient than expected after previous lab experiments. This shows the usefulness of realistic stimuli in experimental clinical research.

scholarly journals Interactive effects of age and inflammation on change in ecologically-assessed cognitive functioning

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 705-706
Author(s):  
Christopher Engeland ◽  
Erik Knight ◽  
Martin Sliwinski ◽  
Jennifer Graham-Engeland
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Cognitive Testing ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Test Accuracy ◽  
Age Related

Abstract Inflammation has been implicated as a precursor to steeper declines in age-associated cognitive decline. Here we investigated biomarkers of peripheral inflammation [basal cytokines, stimulated cytokines (ex vivo), C-reactive protein (CRP)] as moderators of age-related changes in cognitive functioning. As part of the Effects of Stress on Cognitive Aging, Physiology, and Emotion (ESCAPE) study, participants (N = 233; 65% female; 63% Black, 25% Hispanic; 25-65 years of age) completed up to four instances of ambulatory cognitive testing per day across two weeks, over three waves of annual assessments. After each 2-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA) burst, blood was collected and assayed for inflammatory biomarkers. Performance on spatial working memory (mean Euclidean distance errors), processing speed (mean symbol search reaction time), and working memory (n-back test accuracy) tasks were averaged across all instances within an EMA burst. CRP and age interactively predicted change in spatial working memory (B = 0.003, [0.000, 0.005], t(133.60) = 2.350, p = 0.020) such that higher CRP at older ages (~60 years) was associated with a loss of the expected practice effects across waves; at younger ages, CRP did not relate to change in spatial working memory. In a similar fashion, basal (B = -0.002, [-0.004, -0.000], t(103.26) = -2.399, p = 0.018) and stimulated cytokine levels (B = -0.002, [-0.004, -0.000], t(126.65) = -2.183, p = 0.031) interacted with age to predict change in processing speed across waves. These results indicate that inflammation may be critically associated with changes in cognitive functioning in older mid-life adults.

scholarly journals Differences Between Elderly Women and Men in Cognitive Functioning and Quality of Life

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-277
Author(s):  
Elena Navarro ◽  
Mª Dolores Calero ◽  
Mª José Calero-García
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Verbal Learning ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Life Questionnaire ◽  
Cognitive Screening

Today, there is still some controversy about the influence of the variable sex on cognitive functioning and quality of life in old age. The main objective of the study presented is to analyze possible differences between older men and women in relation to their cognitive abilities and quality of life. The study sample consists of 264 persons aged between 65 and 95 years from the provinces of Jaen and Granada who were assessed with a cognitive screening test, a verbal fluency test, a task of sustained attention, a task to assess learning potential, a working memory task, and of quality of life questionnaire. The results show that, once the educational level and age of participants is controlled, men show superior performance on cognitive screening tasks, working memory, sustained attention and verbal fluency; while women performance above men in verbal memory tasks and verbal learning. In quality of life, men show better health and greater independence, while women scored higher than men on social integration and use of social services.

scholarly journals Age-related differentiation in verbal and visuospatial working memory processing in childhood

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (8) ◽  
pp. 2354-2360
Author(s):  
Frances Buttelmann ◽  
Tanja Könen ◽  
Lauren V. Hadley ◽  
Julie-Anne Meaney ◽  
Bonnie Auyeung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Processing ◽  
Age Related

scholarly journals Preserved Contextual Cueing in Realistic Scenes in Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 941
Author(s):  
Stefan Pollmann ◽  
Lisa Rosenblum ◽  
Stefanie Linnhoff ◽  
Eleonora Porracin ◽  
Franziska Geringswald ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Macular Degeneration ◽  
Vision Loss ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Age Related Macular Degeneration ◽  
Contextual Cueing ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Guided Search ◽  
Age Related

Foveal vision loss has been shown to reduce efficient visual search guidance due to contextual cueing by incidentally learned contexts. However, previous studies used artificial (T- among L-shape) search paradigms that prevent the memorization of a target in a semantically meaningful scene. Here, we investigated contextual cueing in real-life scenes that allow explicit memory of target locations in semantically rich scenes. In contrast to the contextual cueing deficits in artificial scenes, contextual cueing in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) did not differ from age-matched normal-sighted controls. We discuss this in the context of visuospatial working-memory demands for which both eye movement control in the presence of central vision loss and memory-guided search may compete. Memory-guided search in semantically rich scenes may depend less on visuospatial working memory than search in abstract displays, potentially explaining intact contextual cueing in the former but not the latter. In a practical sense, our findings may indicate that patients with AMD are less deficient than expected after previous lab experiments. This shows the usefulness of realistic stimuli in experimental clinical research.

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