title: Age-related increases in within-person variability: delta and theta oscillations indicate that the elderly are not always old.
abstract: Behavioral and electrophysiological data related to performance in an auditory Go/NoGo task were analyzed in young and older adults in the present study. Especially, differences in within-person variability in behavior and neural activity between young and older adults and changes in topography of slow event-related oscillations (EROs) were of interest. Within-person variability in behavior was assessed by reaction time (RT) variability. Event-related delta and theta oscillations were analyzed using time-frequency transformation, which can give information on the time-course of single trial event-related EEG spectral power enhancement and intertrial phase-locking (ITC). In contrast to our previous visual Go/NoGo study, no under-recruitment of task-relevant brain regions was found for the auditory theta and delta EROs. Young did not differ from older adults in RT variability or in single trial delta/theta ITC. Altered recruitment of brain activity at advanced age was indicated, first, by stronger early theta phase-locking in older compared to young adults and, second, by a Go-specific lateralization of delta/theta activity. We conclude that within-person variability may increase with age, but the degree depends on performance level and the modality investigated.
authors: Institute of Psychology and Cognition Research, University of Bremen, Grazer Str. 4, D-28359 Bremen, Germany. schmiedtfehr@uni-bremen.de
authors: Christina
authors: C
authors: Schmiedt-Fehr
authors: Saskia
authors: S
authors: Dühl
authors: Canan
authors: C
authors: Basar-Eroglu
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D001519:Behavior; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003700:Delta Rhythm; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time; D013826:Theta Rhythm; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult