Resting cerebral blood flow, attention, and aging.
Aging is accompanied by a decline of fluid cognitive functions, e.g., a slowing of information processing, working memory, and division of attention. This is at least partly due to structural and functional changes in the aging brain. Although a decrement of resting cerebral blood flow (CBF) has been positively associated with cognitive functions in patients with brain diseases, studies with healthy participants have revealed inconsistent results. Therefore, we investigated the relation between resting cerebral blood flow and cognitive functions (tonic and phasic alertness, selective and divided attention) in two samples of healthy young and older participants. We found higher resting CBF and better cognitive performances in the young than in the older sample. In addition, resting CBF was inversely correlated with selective attention in the young and with tonic alertness in the elderly participants. This finding is discussed with regard to the neural efficiency hypothesis of human intelligence.
Bertsch
Katja
K
Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Germany. bert1301@uni-trier.de
Hagemann
Dirk
D
Hermes
Michael
M
Walter
Christof
C
Khan
Robina
R
Naumann
Ewald
E
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000502:physiology; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D055815:Young Adult