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Xu N, Qin X, Zhou Z, Shan W, Ren J, Yang C, Lu L, Wang Q. Age differentially modulates the cortical tracking of the lower and higher level linguistic structures during speech comprehension. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:10463-10474. [PMID: 37566910 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad296] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2022] [Revised: 07/23/2023] [Accepted: 07/24/2023] [Indexed: 08/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Speech comprehension requires listeners to rapidly parse continuous speech into hierarchically-organized linguistic structures (i.e. syllable, word, phrase, and sentence) and entrain the neural activities to the rhythm of different linguistic levels. Aging is accompanied by changes in speech processing, but it remains unclear how aging affects different levels of linguistic representation. Here, we recorded magnetoencephalography signals in older and younger groups when subjects actively and passively listened to the continuous speech in which hierarchical linguistic structures of word, phrase, and sentence were tagged at 4, 2, and 1 Hz, respectively. A newly-developed parameterization algorithm was applied to separate the periodically linguistic tracking from the aperiodic component. We found enhanced lower-level (word-level) tracking, reduced higher-level (phrasal- and sentential-level) tracking, and reduced aperiodic offset in older compared with younger adults. Furthermore, we observed the attentional modulation on the sentential-level tracking being larger for younger than for older ones. Notably, the neuro-behavior analyses showed that subjects' behavioral accuracy was positively correlated with the higher-level linguistic tracking, reversely correlated with the lower-level linguistic tracking. Overall, these results suggest that the enhanced lower-level linguistic tracking, reduced higher-level linguistic tracking and less flexibility of attentional modulation may underpin aging-related decline in speech comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Na Xu
- Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100070, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100070, China
| | - Xiaoxiao Qin
- Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100070, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100070, China
| | - Ziqi Zhou
- Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100070, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100070, China
| | - Wei Shan
- Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100070, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100070, China
| | - Jiechuan Ren
- Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100070, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100070, China
| | - Chunqing Yang
- Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100070, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100070, China
| | - Lingxi Lu
- Center for the Cognitive Science of Language, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Qun Wang
- Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100070, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing 100070, China
- Beijing Institute of Brain Disorders, Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Disorders, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China
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Yeh SL, Li SH, Jingling L, Goh JOS, Chao YP, Tsai AC. Age-Related Differences in the Neural Processing of Idioms: A Positive Perspective. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:865417. [PMID: 35693339 PMCID: PMC9177212 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.865417] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2022] [Accepted: 04/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
We examined whether older adults benefit from a larger mental-lexicon size and world knowledge to process idioms, one of few abilities that do not stop developing until later adulthood. Participants viewed four-character sequences presented one at a time that combined to form (1) frequent idioms, (2) infrequent idioms, (3) random sequences, or (4) perceptual controls, and judged whether the four-character sequence was an idiom. Compared to their younger counterparts, older adults had higher accuracy for frequent idioms and equivalent accuracy for infrequent idioms. Compared to random sequences, when processing frequent and infrequent idioms, older adults showed higher activations in brain regions related to sematic representation than younger adults, suggesting that older adults devoted more cognitive resources to processing idioms. Also, higher activations in the articulation-related brain regions indicate that older adults adopted the thinking-aloud strategy in the idiom judgment task. These results suggest re-organized neural computational involvement in older adults' language representations due to life-long experiences. The current study provides evidence for the alternative view that aging may not necessarily be solely accompanied by decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Su-Ling Yeh
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Neurobiology and Cognitive Science Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Center for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Robotics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Shuo-Heng Li
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Li Jingling
- Graduate Institute of Biomedical Sciences, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
| | - Joshua O. S. Goh
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Neurobiology and Cognitive Science Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Center for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Robotics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Taiwan International Graduate Program, Interdisciplinary Neuroscience, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Yi-Ping Chao
- Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan
| | - Arthur C. Tsai
- Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
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Cao X, Liu T, Jiang J, Liu H, Zhang J, Kochan NA, Niu H, Brodaty H, Sachdev PS, Wen W. Alternation in Effective Connectivity With Cognitive Aging: A Longitudinal Study of Elderly Populations. Front Aging Neurosci 2021; 13:755931. [PMID: 34867282 PMCID: PMC8636113 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.755931] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2021] [Accepted: 10/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In this research, we investigated the alterations in the directionality and strength of regional interactions within functionally changed brain networks and their relationship to cognitive decline during the aging process in normal elderly individuals. Thirty-seven cognitively normal elderly people received resting-state fMRI scans and cognitive assessments at baseline (age = 78.65 ± 3.56 years) and at 4-year follow-up. Functional connectivity analyses were used to identify networks containing brain regions whose functions changed with age as regions of interest. The spectral dynamic causal modeling (spDCM) method was used to estimate the causal interactions within networks in subjects at different time points and in subjects with different cognitive levels to explore the alterations with cognitive aging. The results showed that, at both time points, all the networks, except the frontal-parietal network (FPN) at baseline, had mutual interactions between each pair of nodes. Furthermore, when the subjects were divided with global cognition level, lost connections were only found in the subgroup with better performance. These indicated that elderly people appeared to need more interaction pathways between brain areas with cognitive decline. We also observed that the strength of the flow of information from the left angular gyrus to the precuneus, which is associated with activation of memory retrieval and the functional hub involved in various cognitive domains, was predictive of declines in executive function with the aging process, making it a potential predictor of such situation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xingxing Cao
- Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Ministry of Education, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Tao Liu
- Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Ministry of Education, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Big Data-Based Precision Medicine, Beijing, China
| | - Jiyang Jiang
- Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Hao Liu
- Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Ministry of Education, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Jing Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Ministry of Education, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Nicole A Kochan
- Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.,Neuropsychiatric Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Haijun Niu
- Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Ministry of Education, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Henry Brodaty
- Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.,Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Perminder S Sachdev
- Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.,Neuropsychiatric Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Wei Wen
- Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.,Neuropsychiatric Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Bucur M, Papagno C. An ALE meta-analytical review of the neural correlates of abstract and concrete words. Sci Rep 2021; 11:15727. [PMID: 34344915 PMCID: PMC8333331 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-94506-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2021] [Accepted: 07/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Several clinical studies have reported a double dissociation between abstract and concrete concepts, suggesting that they are processed by at least partly different networks in the brain. However, neuroimaging data seem not in line with neuropsychological reports. Using the ALE method, we run a meta-analysis on 32 brain-activation imaging studies that considered only nouns and verbs. Five clusters were associated with concrete words, four clusters with abstract words. When only nouns were selected three left activation clusters were found to be associated with concrete stimuli and only one with abstract nouns (left IFG). These results confirm that concrete and abstract words processing involves at least partially segregated brain areas, the IFG being relevant for abstract nouns and verbs while more posterior temporoparietal-occipital regions seem to be crucial for processing concrete words, in contrast with the neuropsychological literature that suggests a temporal anterior involvement for concrete words. We investigated the possible reasons that produce different outcomes in neuroimaging and clinical studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Madalina Bucur
- CeRiN (Center for Cognitive Neurorehabilitation), Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Via Matteo del Ben 5/b, 38068, Rovereto, TN, Italy
| | - Costanza Papagno
- CeRiN (Center for Cognitive Neurorehabilitation), Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Via Matteo del Ben 5/b, 38068, Rovereto, TN, Italy.
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
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