Age Differences in Deactivation: A Link to Cognitive Control?

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 1021-1032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Persson ◽  
Cindy Lustig ◽  
James K. Nelson ◽  
Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Generation Task ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Increasing Demand

The network of regions shown by functional imaging studies to be deactivated by experimental tasks relative to nominally more passive baselines (task < baseline) may reflect processes engaged during the resting state or “default mode.” Deactivation may result when attention and resources are diverted from default-mode processes toward task processes. Aging is associated with altered patterns of deactivation which may be related to declining resources, difficulties with resource allocation, or both. These possibilities predict that greater task demand, which increases deactivation levels in younger adults, should exacerbate age-related declines in allocating resources away from the default mode. The present study investigated the magnitude and temporal properties of deactivations in young and older adults during tasks that varied in their demand for cognitive control. Two versions of a verb generation task that varied in their demand for selection among competing alternatives were compared to word reading and a fixation baseline condition. Consistent with our hypothesis, greater deactivations were found with increasing demand. Young and older adults showed equivalent deactivations in the minimal selection condition. By contrast, age differences in both the magnitude and time course of deactivation increased with selection demand: Compared to young adults', older adults' deactivation response showed less sensitivity to demand. Demand-related changes in deactivation magnitude correlated with performance changes, suggesting that individual and group differences in deactivation have functional significance.

scholarly journals Age differences in cognitive control of emotional memory: metacognitive aspects and neural correlates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Nicole Gallant
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Emotional Memory ◽  
Directed Forgetting ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Potentials

Previous research has identified a divergent trajectory for the aging brain, characterized by declines in cognition and preservation in emotional processing. According to the socioemotional selectivity theory, reduced time horizons in later life cause a motivational shift to prioritize emotional goals, such as positive well-being. In service of these goals, older adults devote more cognitive effort to attend to and remember positive information; however, whether they can exert control over such information once it enters memory is not well understood. The primary aim of this dissertation was thus to examine age-related changes in cognitive control of emotional memory including its underlying metacognitive and neural components. In three experiments, young and older adults completed a cue- or value-based version of the item-directed forgetting task for positive, negative, and neutral words. Results consistently demonstrated that young and older adults could strategically control encoding of emotional information, by prioritizing relevant over irrelevant words in memory. This was evident when encoding was directed by to-be-remembered (TBR) or to-be-forgotten (TBF) cues as well as by numeric points that signaled a gain or loss of value (+10 vs. -10). Extending previous research on metacognition and aging, results indicated age invariance in prospective judgments of learning made during the encoding of TBR and TBF words that varied in emotion. In contrast, age groups differed when retrospectively monitoring the source of words. Whereas young adults’ source monitoring was not influenced by emotion or cues, older adults tended to attribute positive items to sources that were higher in value for memory (TBR or +10 cues), consistent with an age-related bias to prioritize positivity. Finally, age differences in event-related potentials underlying encoding of TBR and TBF words provided evidence that older adults may recruit additional resources in frontal regions of the brain to facilitate task performance. Moreover, in line with behavioural results, the ERP signatures of directed forgetting were not modulated by emotion. Altogether, this dissertation demonstrates that cognitive control over emotional memory is intact in later life; however, it highlights important age differences in the metacognitive and neural correlates of this ability.

scholarly journals Age differences in cognitive control of emotional memory: metacognitive aspects and neural correlates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Nicole Gallant
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Emotional Memory ◽  
Directed Forgetting ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Potentials

Previous research has identified a divergent trajectory for the aging brain, characterized by declines in cognition and preservation in emotional processing. According to the socioemotional selectivity theory, reduced time horizons in later life cause a motivational shift to prioritize emotional goals, such as positive well-being. In service of these goals, older adults devote more cognitive effort to attend to and remember positive information; however, whether they can exert control over such information once it enters memory is not well understood. The primary aim of this dissertation was thus to examine age-related changes in cognitive control of emotional memory including its underlying metacognitive and neural components. In three experiments, young and older adults completed a cue- or value-based version of the item-directed forgetting task for positive, negative, and neutral words. Results consistently demonstrated that young and older adults could strategically control encoding of emotional information, by prioritizing relevant over irrelevant words in memory. This was evident when encoding was directed by to-be-remembered (TBR) or to-be-forgotten (TBF) cues as well as by numeric points that signaled a gain or loss of value (+10 vs. -10). Extending previous research on metacognition and aging, results indicated age invariance in prospective judgments of learning made during the encoding of TBR and TBF words that varied in emotion. In contrast, age groups differed when retrospectively monitoring the source of words. Whereas young adults’ source monitoring was not influenced by emotion or cues, older adults tended to attribute positive items to sources that were higher in value for memory (TBR or +10 cues), consistent with an age-related bias to prioritize positivity. Finally, age differences in event-related potentials underlying encoding of TBR and TBF words provided evidence that older adults may recruit additional resources in frontal regions of the brain to facilitate task performance. Moreover, in line with behavioural results, the ERP signatures of directed forgetting were not modulated by emotion. Altogether, this dissertation demonstrates that cognitive control over emotional memory is intact in later life; however, it highlights important age differences in the metacognitive and neural correlates of this ability.

Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Marianne Yee ◽  
Sarah L Adams ◽  
Asad Beck ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

Age Differences in the Social Associative Learning of Trust Information

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendra Leigh Seaman ◽  
Alexander P. Christensen ◽  
Katherine Senn ◽  
Jessica Cooper ◽  
Brittany Shane Cassidy
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Time Model ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

Trust is a key component of social interaction. Older adults, however, often exhibit excessive trust relative to younger adults. One explanation is that older adults may learn to trust differently than younger adults. Here, we examine how younger (N=33) and older adults (N=30) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with three partners. Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but differed in how they shared money. Compared to younger adults, older adults invested more with untrustworthy partners and less with trustworthy partners. As a group, older adults displayed less learning than younger adults. However, computational modeling shows that this is because older adults are more likely to forget what they have learned over time. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed several age-related differences in neural processing. Younger adults showed prediction error signals in social processing areas while older adults showed over-recruitment of several cortical areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that older adults attend to and learn from social cues differently from younger adults.

Processing gender stereotypes in dementia patients and older healthy adults: a self-paced reading study

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Müller-Feldmeth ◽  
Katharina Ahnefeld ◽  
Adriana Hanulíková
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Dementia Patients ◽  
Age Related

AbstractWe used self-paced reading to examine whether stereotypical associations of verbs with women or men as prototypical agents (e.g. the craftsman knits a sweater) are activated during sentence processing in dementia patients and healthy older adults. Effects of stereotypical knowledge on language processing have frequently been observed in young adults, but little is known about age-related changes in the activation and integration of stereotypical information. While syntactic processing may remain intact, semantic capacities are often affected in dementia. Since inferences based on gender stereotypes draw on social and world knowledge, access to stereotype information may also be affected in dementia patients. Results from dementia patients (n = 9, average age 86.6) and healthy older adults (n = 14, average age 79.5) showed slower reading times and less accuracy in comprehension scores for dementia patients compared to the control group. While activation of stereotypical associations of verbs was visible in both groups, they differed with respect to the time-course of processing. The effect of stereotypes on comprehension accuracy was visible for healthy adults only. The evidence from reading times suggests that older adults with and without dementia engage stereotypical inferences during reading, which is in line with research on young adults.

scholarly journals Auditory word recognition across the lifespan

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 119-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrike K. Blumenfeld ◽  
Scott R. Schroeder ◽  
Susan C. Bobb ◽  
Max R. Freeman ◽  
Viorica Marian
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Auditory Word ◽  
Auditory Word Recognition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Age Related Changes

Abstract Recent research suggests that bilingual experience reconfigures linguistic and nonlinguistic cognitive processes. We examined the relationship between linguistic competition resolution and nonlinguistic cognitive control in younger and older adults who were either bilingual or monolingual. Participants heard words in English and identified the referent among four pictures while eye-movements were recorded. Target pictures (e.g., cab) appeared with a phonological competitor picture (e.g., cat) and two filler pictures. After each eye-tracking trial, priming probes assessed residual activation and inhibition of target and competitor words. When accounting for processing speed, results revealed that age-related changes in activation and inhibition are smaller in bilinguals than in monolinguals. Moreover, younger and older bilinguals, but not monolinguals, recruited similar inhibition mechanisms during word identification and during a nonlinguistic Stroop task. Results suggest that, during lexical access, bilinguals show more consistent competition resolution and recruitment of cognitive control across the lifespan than monolinguals.

scholarly journals Adult age differences in subjective responses to dynamic socioemotional incentives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sade J Abiodun ◽  
Galen McAllister ◽  
Gregory Russell Samanez-Larkin ◽  
Kendra Leigh Seaman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Incentive Motivation ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Adult Age Differences

Facial expressions are powerful communicative social signals that motivate feelings and action in the observer. However, research on incentive motivation has overwhelmingly focused on money and points and the limited research on social incentives has been mostly focused on responses in young adulthood. Previous research on the age-related positivity effect and adult age differences in social motivation suggest that older adults might experience higher levels of positive arousal to socioemotional stimuli than younger adults. Affect ratings following dynamic emotional expressions (anger, happiness, sadness) varying in magnitude of expression showed that higher magnitude expressions elicited higher arousal and valence ratings. Older adults did not differ significantly in levels of arousal when compared to younger adults, however their ratings of emotional valence were significantly higher as the magnitude of expressions increased. The findings provide novel evidence that socioemotional incentives may be relatively more reinforcing as adults age. More generally, these dynamic socioemotional stimuli that vary in magnitude are ideal for future studies of more naturalistic affect elicitation, studies of social incentive processing, and use in incentive-driven choice tasks.

scholarly journals Age Differences in the Required Coefficient of Friction During Level Walking Do Not Exist When Experimentally-Controlling Speed and Step Length

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis E. Anderson ◽  
Christopher T. Franck ◽  
Michael L. Madigan
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Coefficient Of Friction ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Step Length ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Independent Effects ◽  
Positive Effect

The effects of gait speed and step length on the required coefficient of friction (COF) confound the investigation of age-related differences in required COF. The goals of this study were to investigate whether age differences in required COF during self-selected gait persist when experimentally-controlling speed and step length, and to determine the independent effects of speed and step length on required COF. Ten young and 10 older healthy adults performed gait trials under five gait conditions: self-selected, slow and fast speeds without controlling step length, and slow and fast speeds while controlling step length. During self-selected gait, older adults walked with shorter step lengths and exhibited a lower required COF. Older adults also exhibited a lower required COF when walking at a controlled speed without controlling step length. When both age groups walked with the same speed and step length, no age difference in required COF was found. Thus, speed and step length can have a large influence on studies investigating age-related differences in required COF. It was also found that speed and step length have independent and opposite effects on required COF, with step length having a strong positive effect on required COF, and speed having a weaker negative effect.

scholarly journals USING VR FOR NAVIGATION ASSESSMENT IN OLDER ADULTS

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S240-S240
Author(s):  
Scott Moffat
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Functional Independence ◽  
Spatial Strategies ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

Abstract There has been a long tradition of wayfinding and orienteering studies in humans but these have mostly neglected possible age-related differences in navigation. This field of inquiry is experiencing something of a resurgence of interest due to the development of VR technology which has brought the systematic study of large scale navigation into the laboratory and into the MRI scanning environment. Empirical studies to date identify navigation as an aspect of cognition that is vulnerable to the aging process. Functional and structural neuroimaging studies in humans suggest that age-related changes in the brain’s “navigation circuit” may underlie these behavioral age differences. Older adults also adopt unique spatial strategies and knowledge of these strategy preferences could enlighten both basic science research in spatial cognition and also inform the development of age-specific technological assistance that may extend functional independence of older adults into later life.

scholarly journals Advanced Aging Enhances the Positivity Effect in Memory: Due to Cognitive Control or Age-Related Decline in Emotional Processing?

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michiko Sakaki ◽  
Jasmine A. L. Raw ◽  
Jamie Findlay ◽  
Mariel Thottam
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Aging Brain ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Conditioned Responses

Older adults typically remember more positive than negative information compared to their younger counterparts; a phenomenon referred to as the ‘positivity effect.’ According to the socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), the positivity effect derives from the age-related motivational shift towards attaining emotionally meaningful goals which become more important as the perception of future time becomes more limited. Cognitive control mechanisms are critical in achieving such goals and therefore SST predicts that the positivity effect is associated with preserved cognitive control mechanisms in older adults. In contrast, the aging-brain model suggests that the positivity effect is driven by an age-related decline in the amygdala which is responsible for emotional processing and emotional learning. The aim of the current research was to address whether the age-related positivity effect is associated with cognitive control or impaired emotional processing associated with aging. We included older old adults, younger old adults and younger adults and tested their memory for emotional stimuli, cognitive control and amygdala-dependent fear conditioned responses. Consistent with prior research, older adults, relative to younger adults, demonstrate better memory for positive over negative images. We further found that within a group of older adults, the positivity effect increases as a function of age, such that older old adults demonstrated a greater positivity effect compared to younger older adults. Furthermore, the positivity effect in older old adults was associated with preserved cognitive control, supporting the prediction of SST. Contrary to the prediction of the aging-brain model, participants across all groups demonstrated similar enhanced skin conductance responses to fear conditioned stimuli – responses known to rely on the amygdala. Our results support SST and suggest that the positivity effect in older adults is achieved by the preserved cognitive control mechanisms and is not a reflection of the impaired emotional function associated with age.

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