title: Top-down modulation and normal aging.
abstract: Normal aging is characterized by cognitive deficits that cross multiple domains and impair the ability of some older individuals to lead productive, high-quality lives. One of the primary goals of research in our laboratories is to study age-related alterations in neural mechanisms that underlie a wide range of cognitive processes so that we may generate a unifying principle of cognitive aging. Top-down modulation is the mechanism by which we enhance neural activity associated with relevant information and suppress activity for irrelevant information, thus establishing a foundation for both attention and memory processes. We use three converging technologies of human neurophysiology to study top-down modulation in aging: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Using these tools we have discovered that healthy older adults exhibit a selective inability to effectively suppress neural activity associated with distracting information and that this top-down suppression deficit is correlated with their memory impairment. We are now further characterizing the basis of these age-related alterations in top-down modulation and investigating interventions to remedy them.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Physiology, Keck Center of Integrative Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-2522, USA. adam.gazzaley@ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gazzaley
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: D'Esposito
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009420:Nervous System / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000473:pathology; D009424:Nervous System Physiological Phenomena