| 1. |
- Brehmer, Yvonne, et al.
(författare)
-
Neural correlates of training-related working-memory gains in old age
- 2011
-
Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 58:4, s. 1110-1120
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Working memory (WM) functioning declines in old age. Due to its impact on many higher-order cognitive functions, investigating whether training can modify WM performance has recently been of great interest. We examined the relationship between behavioral performance and neural activity following five weeks of intensive WM training in 23 healthy older adults (M = 63.7 years). 12 participants received adaptive training (i.e. individually adjusted task difficulty to bring individuals to their performance maximum), whereas the others served as active controls (i.e. fixed low-level practice). Brain activity was measured before and after training, using fMRI, while subjects performed a WM task under two difficulty conditions. Although there were no training-related changes in WM during scanning, neocortical brain activity decreased post training and these decreases were larger in the adaptive training group than in the controls under high WM load. This pattern suggests intervention-related increases in neural efficiency. Further, there were disproportionate gains in the adaptive training group in trained as well as in non-trained (i.e. attention, episodic memory) tasks assessed outside the scanner, indicating the efficacy of the training regimen. Critically, the degree of training-related changes in brain activity (i.e. neocortical decreases and subcortical increases) was related to the maximum gain score achieved during the intervention period. This relationship suggests that the decreased activity, but also specific activity increases, observed were functionally relevant.
|
|
| 2. |
- Ebner, Natalie C., et al.
(författare)
-
Processing own-age vs. other-age faces : Neuro-behavioral correlates and effects of emotion
- 2013
-
Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 78, s. 363-371
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Age constitutes a salient feature of a face and signals group membership. There is evidence of greater attention to and better memory for own-age than other-age faces. However, little is known about the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying processing differences for own-age vs. other-age faces. Even less is known about the impact of emotion expressed in faces on such own-age effects. Using fMRI, the present study examined brain activity while young and older adult participants identified expressions of neutral, happy, and angry young and older faces. Across facial expressions, medial prefrontal cortex, insula, and (for older participants) amygdala showed greater activity to own-age than other-age faces. These own-age effects in ventral medial prefrontal cortex and insula held for neutral and happy faces, but not for angry faces. This novel and intriguing finding suggests that processing of negative facial emotions under some conditions overrides age-of-face effects.
|
|
| 3. |
- Karlsson, Sari, et al.
(författare)
-
Modulation of striatal dopamine D1 binding by cognitive processing
- 2009
-
Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 48:2, s. 398-404
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is strong evidence that dopamine (DA) is implicated in higher-order cognitive functioning, but it remains controversial whether D1 receptor binding can be modified by cognitive activity. We examined striatal D1 binding potential (BP) in 20 younger (22-30 years) and 20 older (65-75 years) persons who underwent two [(11)C] SCH 23390 PET measurements, one while resting and one while performing a cognitive task taxing inhibitory functioning. The younger persons showed significant task-related BP reductions in sensorimotor, limbic, and associative striatum during cognitive activity compared to rest. Older persons showed no reliable BP reductions in any striatal subregion. These findings demonstrate that D1 receptor binding can be modified by cognitive activity in younger persons, but also provide novel evidence for the notion that human aging is associated not only with lower DA receptor density but also with altered modifiability of the DA system.
|
|
| 4. |
- Karlsson, Sari, et al.
(författare)
-
Relationship of dopamine D1 receptor binding in striatal and extrastriatal regions to cognitive functioning in healthy humans
- 2011
-
Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 57:2, s. 346-351
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dopamine (DA) availability in both striatal and extrastriatal brain regions has been implicated in cognitive performance. Given that different brain regions are neuroanatomically and functionally different, DA receptor binding in different brain regions may be selectively important to specific cognitive functions. Using PET and the radioligand SCH23390, we measured D1 receptor binding potential (BP(ND)) in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), hippocampus (HC), as well as in sensorimotor (SMST), associative (AST), and limbic (LST) striatum in 20 healthy younger persons. Subjects completed tasks assessing executive functioning, episodic memory, speed, and general knowledge. Unlike previous reports, we found no linear or curvilinear relationships between D1 receptor binding in DLPFC and performance in any cognitive task. However, BP(ND) in HC was positively linked to executive performance as well as to speed and knowledge. With regard to the striatal subregions, D1 BP(ND) in SMST was more strongly related to speed compared to the other striatal subregions, whereas D1 BP(ND) in AST was more strongly linked to general knowledge. These findings provide support for the notion that D1 receptors in separate brain regions are differentially related to performance in tasks tapping various cognitive domains.
|
|
| 5. |
- Pedersen, Robin, et al.
(författare)
-
When functional blurring becomes deleterious : Reduced system segregation is associated with less white matter integrity and cognitive decline in aging
- 2021
-
Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 242
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Healthy aging is accompanied by progressive decline in cognitive performance and concomitant changes in brain structure and functional architecture. Age-accompanied alterations in brain function have been characterized on a network level as weaker functional connections within brain networks along with stronger interactions between networks. This phenomenon has been described as age-related differences in functional network segregation. It has been suggested that functional networks related to associative processes are particularly sensitive to age-related deterioration in segregation, possibly related to cognitive decline in aging. However, there have been only a few longitudinal studies with inconclusive results. Here, we used a large longitudinal sample of 284 participants between 25 to 80 years of age at baseline, with cognitive and neuroimaging data collected at up to three time points over a 10-year period. We investigated age-related changes in functional segregation among two large-scale systems comprising associative and sensorimotor-related resting-state networks. We found that functional segregation of associative systems declines in aging with exacerbated deterioration from the late fifties. Changes in associative segregation were positively associated with changes in global cognitive ability, suggesting that decreased segregation has negative consequences for domain-general cognitive functions. Age-related changes in system segregation were partly accounted for by changes in white matter integrity, but white matter integrity only weakly influenced the association between segregation and cognition. Together, these novel findings suggest a cascade where reduced white-matter integrity leads to less distinctive functional systems which in turn contributes to cognitive decline in aging.
|
|
| 6. |
- Rieckmann, Anna, et al.
(författare)
-
Activation in striatum and medial temporal lobe during sequence learning in younger and older adults : relations to performance.
- 2010
-
Ingår i: NeuroImage. - Amsterdam : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 50:3, s. 1303-12
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The striatum and connected cortical areas have been implicated in sequence learning (SL) tasks, in which performance increments are gradual and learning typically occurs in the absence of awareness. It has recently been shown that increasing striatal activation during SL may be accompanied by decreasing activation in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) across time, but the specific contribution of the MTL to SL remains unclear. In the current age-comparative fMRI study, we show that gradual SL in the serial reaction time task is associated with activation increases in the striatum and activation decreases in the MTL across time in younger adults. However, in older adults, SL is positively related to activation increases in both the striatum and the MTL. The results are discussed in terms of the functional role of the MTL in SL, and offer a novel explanation of the fact that SL is little affected in aging.
|
|
| 7. |
- Salami, Alireza, et al.
(författare)
-
A Multivariate Analysis of Age-Related Differences in Functional Networks Supporting Conflict Resolution
- 2014
-
Ingår i: NeuroImage. - San Diego : Academic Press. - 1053-8119 .- 1095-9572. ; 86, s. 150-163
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Functional neuroimaging studies demonstrate age-related differences in recruitment of a large-scale attentional network during interference resolution, especially within dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These alterations in functional responses have been frequently observed despite equivalent task performance, suggesting age-related reallocation of neural resources, although direct evidence for a facilitating effect in aging is sparse. We used the multi-source interference task and multivariate partial-least-squares to investigate age-related differences in the neuronal signature of conflict resolution, and their behavioral implications in younger and older adults. There were interference-related increases in activity, involving fronto-parietal and basal ganglia networks that generalized across age. In addition an age-by-task interaction was observed within a distributed network, including DLPFC and ACC, with greater activity during interference in the old. Next, we combined brain–behavior and functional connectivity analyses to investigate whether compensatory brain changes were present in older adults, using DLPFC and ACC as regions of interest (i.e. seed regions). This analysis revealed two networks differentially related to performance across age groups. A structural analysis revealed age-related gray-matter losses in regions facilitating performance in the young, suggesting that functional reorganization may partly reflect structural alterations in aging. Collectively, these findings suggest that age-related structural changes contribute to reductions in the efficient recruitment of a youth-like interference network, which cascades into instantiation of a different network facilitating conflict resolution in elderly people.
|
|
