title: Top-down modulation of visual and auditory cortical processing in aging.
abstract: Age-related cognitive decline has been accounted for by an age-related deficit in top-down attentional modulation of sensory cortical processing. In light of recent behavioral findings showing that age-related differences in selective attention are modality dependent, our goal was to investigate the role of sensory modality in age-related differences in top-down modulation of sensory cortical processing. This question was addressed by testing younger and older individuals in several memory tasks while undergoing fMRI. Throughout these tasks, perceptual features were kept constant while attentional instructions were varied, allowing us to devise all combinations of relevant and irrelevant, visual and auditory information. We found no top-down modulation of auditory sensory cortical processing in either age group. In contrast, we found top-down modulation of visual cortical processing in both age groups, and this effect did not differ between age groups. That is, older adults enhanced cortical processing of relevant visual information and suppressed cortical processing of visual distractors during auditory attention to the same extent as younger adults. The present results indicate that older adults are capable of suppressing irrelevant visual information in the context of cross-modal auditory attention, and thereby challenge the view that age-related attentional and cognitive decline is due to a general deficits in the ability to suppress irrelevant information.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, the Netherlands. Electronic address: maria.guerreiro@uni-hamburg.de.
authors.forename: Maria J S
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Guerreiro
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eck
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, the Netherlands; Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, Department of Radiology, University of Minnesota, 2021 6th Street SE, 55455 Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moerel
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Elisabeth A T
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Evers
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Pascal W M
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Van Gerven
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aging; Selective attention; Sensory modality; Top-down modulation; fMRI