Preserved and attenuated electrophysiological correlates of visual spatial attention in elderly subjects.
Healthy aging is associated with changes in many neurocognitive functions. While on the behavioral level, visual spatial attention capacities are relatively stable with increasing age, the underlying neural processes change. In this study, we investigated attention-related modulations of the stimulus-locked event-related potential (ERP) and occipital oscillations in the alpha band (8-14Hz) in young and elderly participants. Both groups performed a visual attention task equally well and the ERP showed comparable attention-related modulations in both age groups. However, in elderly subjects, oscillations in the alpha band were massively reduced both during the task and in the resting state and the typical task-related lateralized pattern of alpha activity was not observed. These differences between young and elderly participants were observed on the group level as well as on the single trial level. The results indicate that younger and older adults use different neural strategies to reach the same performance in a covert visual spatial attention task.
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: m.vanderwaal@donders.ru.nl.
Marjolein
M
van der Waal
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Jason
J
Farquhar
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Klimmendaal Rehabilitation Center, Heijenoordseweg 5, 6813 GG Arnhem, The Netherlands.
Luciano
L
Fasotti
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Peter
P
Desain
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000513:Alpha Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013057:Spectrum Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
Alpha lateralization; Cognitive aging; Covert attention; Electrophysiology; P300; Visual spatial attention