title: Age-related changes in ERP correlates of visuospatial and motor processes.
abstract: Although previous ERP studies have demonstrated slowing of visuospatial and motor processes with age, such studies frequently included only young and elderly participants, and lacked information about age-related changes across the adult lifespan. The present research used a Simon task with two irrelevant dimensions (position and direction of an arrow) to study visuospatial (N2 posterior contralateral, N2pc) and motor (response-locked lateralized readiness potential, LRP-r) processes in young, middle-aged, and elderly adults. The reaction time and motor execution stage (LRP-r) increased gradually with age, while visuospatial processes (N2pc latency) were similarly delayed in the older groups. No age-related increase in interference was observed, probably related to a delay in processing the symbolic meaning of the direction in older groups, which was consistent with age-related differences in distributional analyses and N2pc amplitude modulations.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Facultade de Psicoloxía, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Galiza, Spain. jesus.cespon@usc.es
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cespón
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Galdo-Álvarez
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Díaz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Age-related slowing; Event-related potentials (ERPs); Motor processes; Simon task; Visuospatial attention