title: Age-related occipito-temporal hypoactivation during visual search: relationships between mN2pc sources and performance.
abstract: Recently, an event-related potential (ERP) study (Lorenzo-López et al., 2008) provided evidence that normal aging significantly delays and attenuates the electrophysiological correlate of the allocation of visuospatial attention (N2pc component) during a feature-detection visual search task. To further explore the effects of normal aging on the N2pc neural sources, neuromagnetic activity during the execution of a visual search task was recorded in healthy young (N=14) and older (N=20) participants by using magnetoencephalography (MEG). The possible relationships between these neural sources and overt performance were explored by assessing the co-variation between the neural N2pc activity and both the task performance and the execution in the Trail Making Test Form A (TMT-A). Results revealed that young participants showed greater activity in occipito-temporal regions than older participants during the mN2pc (magnetic counterpart of the N2pc component) latency range (190-270ms). Moreover, older participants showed reduced relative activation in the right occipito-temporal source of mN2pc. These findings suggest that the previously observed age-related changes in N2pc parameters are associated with a significant hypoactivation of occipito-temporal N2pc sources that is more marked in the right hemisphere.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Electronic address: laura.lorenzo@usc.es.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lorenzo-López
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Centre for Biomedical Technology (Technical University of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid), Spain.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gutiérrez
authors.affiliation: Centro de Magnetoencefalografía Dr. Pérez-Modrego of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain; Laboratory for Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Centre for Biomedical Technology (Technical University of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid), Spain; Department of Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Moratti
authors.affiliation: Centro de Magnetoencefalografía Dr. Pérez-Modrego of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain; Laboratory for Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Centre for Biomedical Technology (Technical University of Madrid and Complutense University of Madrid), Spain.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Maestú
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cadaveira
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Amenedo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult