scholarly journals Changes in Psychoacoustic Recognition and Brain Activity by Types of Fire Alarm

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 541
Author(s):  
Sunghwa You ◽  
Woojae Han ◽  
Han-Jin Jang ◽  
Ghee-Young Noh
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Acoustic Features ◽  
High Arousal ◽  
Fire Alarm ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Gamma Power

In public, the role of a fire alarm is to induce a person to a certain recognition of potential danger, resulting in that person taking appropriate evacuation action. Unfortunately, the sound of the fire alarm is not internationally standardized yet, except for recommending the use of a signal with a regular temporal pattern (or T-3 pattern). To identify the effective alarm sound, the present study investigated a relationship between acoustic characteristics of the fire alarm and its subjective psychoacoustic recognition and objective electroencephalography (EEG) responses for 50 young and older listeners. As the stimuli, six different types of alarms were applied: bell, slow whoop, T-3 520 Hz, T-3 3100 Hz, and two simulated T-3 sounds (i.e., 520 and 3100 Hz) to which older adults with age-related hearing loss seemed to hear. While listening to the sounds, the EEG was recorded by each individual. The psychoacoustic recognition was also evaluated by using a questionnaire consisting of three subcategories, i.e., arousal, urgency, and immersion. The subjective responses resulted in a statistically significant difference between the types of sound. In particular, the fire alarms had acoustic features of high frequency or gradually increased frequencies such as T-3 3100 Hz, bell, and slow whoop, representing effective sounds to induce high arousal and urgency, although they also showed a limitation in being widely transmitted and vulnerable to background noise environment. Interestingly, there was a meaningful interaction effect between the sounds and age groups for the urgency and immersion, indicating that the bell was quite highly recognized in older adults. In general, EEG data showed that alpha power was decreased and gamma power was increased in all sounds, which means a relationship with negative emotions such as high arousal and urgency. Based on the current findings, we suggest using fire alarm sounds with acoustic features of high frequencies in indoor and/or public places.

Different Frequency Bands of Electromagnetic Wave on Age-Related Developmental Changes

2013 ◽  
Vol 479-480 ◽  
pp. 480-485
Author(s):  
Ming Chung Ho ◽  
Chin Fei Huang ◽  
Chia Yi Chou ◽  
Ming Chi Lu ◽  
Chen Hsieh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spectral Power ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Phase Locking ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Potentials

Brain dynamics is an important issue in understanding child development. However, very little research of the event-related responses has been used to explore changes during childhood. The aim of this study was to investigate mature changes in spatiotemporal organization of brain dynamics. We hypothesized that oscillatory event-related brain activity were affected by age-related changes. The sample include three age groups, namely 7 years (N = 18), 11 years (N = 18), and adults (N = 18). The event-related spectral power (ERPSP), and inter-trial phase locking (ITPL) of the event-related potentials (ERPs) were obtained from the time-frequency analysis of the auditory oddball task. Results revealed that: (a) decreased theta power, but alpha power increased with age; (b) the values of ITPL in the theta and alpha bands increased with age. These suggest that ERPSP, and ITPL provide useful indicators of cognitive maturation processes in children aged 7 and 11 years.

scholarly journals Aging impairs primary task resumption and attentional control processes following interruptions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Roesner ◽  
Bianca Zickerick ◽  
Melinda Sabo ◽  
Daniel Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Attentional Selection ◽  
Primary Task ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Memory Content ◽  
Task Resumption

Attentional selection of working memory content is impaired after an interruption. This effect was shown to increase with age. Here we investigate how electrophysiological mechanisms underlying attentional selection within working memory differ during primary task resumption between younger and older adults. Participants performed a working memory task, while be-ing frequently interrupted with either a cognitively low- or high-demanding arithmetic task. Afterwards, a retrospective cue (retro-cue) indicated the working memory content required for later report. The detrimental effect of the interruption was evident in both age groups, but while younger adults were more strongly affected by a high- than by a low-demanding inter-ruption, the performance deficit appeared independently of the cognitive requirements of the interruption task in older adults. A similar pattern was found regarding frontal-posterior con-nectivity in the theta frequency range, suggesting that aging decreases the ability to selectively maintain relevant information within working memory. The power of mid-frontal theta oscilla-tions (4-7 Hz) featured a comparable effect of interruptions in both age groups. However, pos-terior alpha power (8-14 Hz) following the retro-cue was more diminished by a preceding in-terruption in older adults. These results suggest an age-related deficit in the attentional selec-tion and maintenance of primary task information following an interruption that appeared in-dependent from the cognitive requirements of the interrupting task.

scholarly journals Differential brain activity in visuo-perceptual regions during landmark-based navigation in young and healthy older adults

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Ramanoël ◽  
Marion Durteste ◽  
Marcia Bécu ◽  
Christophe Habas ◽  
Angelo Arleo
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Cortical Projection ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Impact

AbstractOlder adults exhibit prominent impairments in their capacity to navigate, reorient in unfamiliar environments or update their path when faced with obstacles. This decline in navigational capabilities has traditionally been ascribed to memory impairments and dysexecutive function whereas the impact of visual aging has often been overlooked. The ability to perceive visuo-spatial information such as salient landmarks is essential to navigate in space efficiently. To date, the functional and neurobiological factors underpinning landmark processing in aging remain insufficiently characterized. To address this issue, this study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain activity associated with landmark-based navigation in young and healthy older participants. Twenty-five young adults (μ=25.4 years, σ=4.7; 7F) and twenty-one older adults (μ=73.0 years, σ=3.9; 10F) performed a virtual navigation task in the scanner in which they could only orient using salient landmarks. The underlying whole-brain patterns of activity as well as the functional roles of scene-selective regions, the parahippocampal place area (PPA), the occipital place area (OPA), and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) were analyzed. We found that older adults’ navigational abilities were diminished compared to young adults’ and that the two age groups relied on distinct navigational strategies to solve the task. Better performance during landmark-based navigation was found to be associated with increased neural activity in an extended neural network comprising several cortical and cerebellar regions. Direct comparisons between age groups further revealed that young participants had enhanced anterior temporal activity. In addition, young adults only were found to recruit occipital areas corresponding to the cortical projection of the central visual field during landmark-based navigation. The region-of-interest analysis revealed increased OPA activation in older adult participants. There were no significant between-group differences in PPA and RSC activations. These results hint at the possibility that aging diminishes fine-grained information processing in occipital and temporal regions thus hindering the capacity to use landmarks adequately for navigation. This work helps towards a better comprehension of the neural dynamics subtending landmark-based navigation and it provides new insights on the impact of age-related visuo-spatial processing changes on navigation capabilities.

Does predictive cueing of encoding stimulus duration modulate alpha power and facilitate visual working memory performance in younger and older adults?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Sghirripa ◽  
Lynton Graetz ◽  
Nigel Rogasch ◽  
John Semmler ◽  
Mitchell Goldsworthy
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Retention Period ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Oscillatory Power

Both selective attention and visual working memory (WM) performance are vulnerable to age related decline. Older adults perform worse on, and are less able to modulate oscillatory power in the alpha frequency range (8-12 Hz) than younger adults in WM tasks involving predictive cues about ‘where’ or ‘when’ a stimulus will be present. However, no study has investigated whether alpha power is modulated by cues predicting ‘how long’ an encoding duration will be. To test this, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while 24 younger (aged 18-33 years) and 23 older (aged 60-77 years) adults completed a modified delay match-to-sample task where participants were cued to the duration (either 0.1 s or 0.5 s) of an encoding stimulus consisting of 4 coloured squares. We found: (1) predictive cues increased WM capacity, but long encoding duration trials led to reduced WM capacity in both age groups, compared to short encoding duration trials; (2) no evidence for differences in preparatory alpha power between predictive and neutral cues for either short or long encoding durations, but preparatory alpha suppression was weaker in older adults; (3) retention period oscillatory power differed between short and long encoding duration trials, but these differences were no longer present when comparing the trial types from the onset of the encoding stimulus; and (4) oscillatory power in the preparatory and retention periods were not related to task performance. Our results suggest that preparatory alpha power is not modulated by predictive cues towards encoding duration during visual WM, however, reductions in alpha/beta oscillatory power during visual WM retention may be linked to the encoding stimulus, rather than a process specific to WM retention.

scholarly journals Dance Training Shapes Action Perception and Its Neural Implementation within the Young and Older Adult Brain

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise P. Kirsch ◽  
Nadine Diersch ◽  
Dilini K. Sumanapala ◽  
Emily S. Cross
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Adult Brain ◽  
Action Perception ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Dance Training ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Visual Tasks ◽  
Development And Aging

How we perceive others in action is shaped by our prior experience. Many factors influence brain responses when observing others in action, including training in a particular physical skill, such as sport or dance, and also general development and aging processes. Here, we investigate how learning a complex motor skill shapes neural and behavioural responses among a dance-naïve sample of 20 young and 19 older adults. Across four days, participants physically rehearsed one set of dance sequences, observed a second set, and a third set remained untrained. Functional MRI was obtained prior to and immediately following training. Participants’ behavioural performance on motor and visual tasks improved across the training period, with younger adults showing steeper performance gains than older adults. At the brain level, both age groups demonstrated decreased sensorimotor cortical engagement after physical training, with younger adults showing more pronounced decreases in inferior parietal activity compared to older adults. Neural decoding results demonstrate that among both age groups, visual and motor regions contain experience-specific representations of new motor learning. By combining behavioural measures of performance with univariate and multivariate measures of brain activity, we can start to build a more complete picture of age-related changes in experience-dependent plasticity.

scholarly journals Load-dependent modulation of alpha oscillations during working memory encoding and retention in young and older adults

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Sghirripa ◽  
Lynton Graetz ◽  
Ashley Merkin ◽  
Nigel C Rogasch ◽  
John G Semmler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Alpha Oscillations ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Frequency Changes

AbstractWorking memory (WM) is vulnerable to age-related decline, particularly under high loads. Visual alpha oscillations contribute to WM performance in younger adults, and although alpha decreases in power and frequency with age, it is unclear if alpha activity supports WM in older adults. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while 24 younger (aged 18-35 years) and 30 older (aged 50-86) adults performed a modified Sternberg task with varying load conditions. Older adults demonstrated slower reaction times at all loads, but there were no significant age differences in accuracy. Regardless of age, alpha power decreased, and alpha frequency increased with load during encoding, and the magnitude of alpha suppression during retention was larger at higher loads. While alpha power during retention was lower than fixation in older, but not younger adults, the relative change from fixation was not significantly different between age groups. Individual differences in alpha power did not predict performance for either age groups or at any WM loads. Future research should elaborate the functional significance of alpha power and frequency changes that accompany WM performance in cognitive ageing.

Age-Related Differences Between Young and Old Adults: Effects of Advance Information on Task Switching

2020 ◽  
Vol 127 (6) ◽  
pp. 985-1014
Author(s):  
Wen-Pin Chang ◽  
I-Hsuan Shen ◽  
Chien-Pei Wen ◽  
Chia-Ling Chen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Switch Cost ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Task Goal ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Advance Information

In this study we investigated the effects of advance information on task switching in young and old adults, using two forms of advance information (memory-based and cue-based) and a no advance information task. We compared 19 healthy young and 19 healthy older adults in terms of their behavioral performance and neural correlates under these three task-switching paradigms. We observed a significant difference in mixing cost between the two age groups. There was no switch cost group difference on the memory-based and cue-based tasks, but older adults showed a larger switch cost than younger adults on the no advance information task. On evoked potential measures, there was no group effect in P3 cue-locked positivity; but there was, a frontal shift of the target-locked P3, indexed as reactive control, among older adults. We observed an increased target-locked P3 in the no-information paradigm compared with the cue-based and memory-based paradigms in both groups. Task cue facilitated advance preparation and proactive control under the cue-based paradigm in both groups. Age-related decline and difficulty in control processes required for task goal maintenance were apparent among the older adults.

Inefficient Encoding as an Explanation for Age-Related Deficits in Recollection-Based Processing

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Friedman ◽  
Ray Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Semantic Retrieval ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Face ◽  
Episodic Memories

A cardinal feature of aging is a decline in episodic memory (EM). Nevertheless, there is evidence that some older adults may be able to “compensate” for failures in recollection-based processing by recruiting brain regions and cognitive processes not normally recruited by the young. We review the evidence suggesting that age-related declines in EM performance and recollection-related brain activity (left-parietal EM effect; LPEM) are due to altered processing at encoding. We describe results from our laboratory on differences in encoding- and retrieval-related activity between young and older adults. We then show that, relative to the young, in older adults brain activity at encoding is reduced over a brain region believed to be crucial for successful semantic elaboration in a 400–1,400-ms interval (left inferior prefrontal cortex, LIPFC; Johnson, Nessler, & Friedman, 2013 ; Nessler, Friedman, Johnson, & Bersick, 2007 ; Nessler, Johnson, Bersick, & Friedman, 2006 ). This reduced brain activity is associated with diminished subsequent recognition-memory performance and the LPEM at retrieval. We provide evidence for this premise by demonstrating that disrupting encoding-related processes during this 400–1,400-ms interval in young adults affords causal support for the hypothesis that the reduction over LIPFC during encoding produces the hallmarks of an age-related EM deficit: normal semantic retrieval at encoding, reduced subsequent episodic recognition accuracy, free recall, and the LPEM. Finally, we show that the reduced LPEM in young adults is associated with “additional” brain activity over similar brain areas as those activated when older adults show deficient retrieval. Hence, rather than supporting the compensation hypothesis, these data are more consistent with the scaffolding hypothesis, in which the recruitment of additional cognitive processes is an adaptive response across the life span in the face of momentary increases in task demand due to poorly-encoded episodic memories.

The influence of osteopathic correction on the rate of various rhythms of the body

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. E. Chernikova ◽  
Yu. P. Potekhina
Keyword(s):  
Heart Rate ◽  
Respiratory Rate ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Biomechanical Properties ◽  
Dispersion Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Tissues ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Before And After

Introduction. An osteopathic examination determines the rate, the amplitude and the strength of the main rhythms (cardiac, respiratory and cranial). However, there are relatively few studies in the available literature dedicated to the influence of osteopathic correction (OC) on the characteristics of these rhythms.Goal of research — to study the influence of OC on the rate characteristics of various rhythms of the human body.Materials and methods. 88 adult osteopathic patients aged from 18 to 81 years were examined, among them 30 men and 58 women. All patients received general osteopathic examination. The rate of the cranial rhythm (RCR), respiratory rate (RR) heart rate (HR), the mobility of the nervous processes (MNP) and the connective tissue mobility (CTM) were assessed before and after the OC session.Results. Since age varied greatly in the examined group, a correlation analysis of age-related changes of the assessed rhythms was carried out. Only the CTM correlated with age (r=–0,28; p<0,05) in a statistically significant way. The rank dispersion analysis of Kruskal–Wallis also showed statistically significant difference in this indicator in different age groups (p=0,043). With the increase of years, the CTM decreases gradually. After the OC, the CTM, increased in a statistically significant way (p<0,0001). The RCR varied from 5 to 12 cycles/min in the examined group, which corresponded to the norm. After the OC, the RCR has increased in a statistically significant way (p<0,0001), the MNP has also increased (p<0,0001). The initial heart rate in the subjects varied from 56 to 94 beats/min, and in 15 % it exceeded the norm. After the OC the heart rate corresponded to the norm in all patients. The heart rate and the respiratory rate significantly decreased after the OC (р<0,0001).Conclusion. The described biorhythm changes after the OC session may be indicative of the improvement of the nervous regulation, of the normalization of the autonomic balance, of the improvement of the biomechanical properties of body tissues and of the increase of their mobility. The assessed parameters can be measured quickly without any additional equipment and can be used in order to study the results of the OC.

scholarly journals Resting‐State EEG Microstates Parallel Age‐Related Differences in Allocentric Spatial Working Memory Performance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeline Jabès ◽  
Giuliana Klencklen ◽  
Paolo Ruggeri ◽  
Christoph M. Michel ◽  
Pamela Banta Lavenex ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Age Related

AbstractAlterations of resting-state EEG microstates have been associated with various neurological disorders and behavioral states. Interestingly, age-related differences in EEG microstate organization have also been reported, and it has been suggested that resting-state EEG activity may predict cognitive capacities in healthy individuals across the lifespan. In this exploratory study, we performed a microstate analysis of resting-state brain activity and tested allocentric spatial working memory performance in healthy adult individuals: twenty 25–30-year-olds and twenty-five 64–75-year-olds. We found a lower spatial working memory performance in older adults, as well as age-related differences in the five EEG microstate maps A, B, C, C′ and D, but especially in microstate maps C and C′. These two maps have been linked to neuronal activity in the frontal and parietal brain regions which are associated with working memory and attention, cognitive functions that have been shown to be sensitive to aging. Older adults exhibited lower global explained variance and occurrence of maps C and C′. Moreover, although there was a higher probability to transition from any map towards maps C, C′ and D in young and older adults, this probability was lower in older adults. Finally, although age-related differences in resting-state EEG microstates paralleled differences in allocentric spatial working memory performance, we found no evidence that any individual or combination of resting-state EEG microstate parameter(s) could reliably predict individual spatial working memory performance. Whether the temporal dynamics of EEG microstates may be used to assess healthy cognitive aging from resting-state brain activity requires further investigation.

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