Alerting, orienting, and executive attention in older adults

Aging impairs reactive attentional control but not proactive distractor inhibition

Older adults tend to be more prone to distraction compared with young adults, and this age-related deficit has been attributed to a deficiency in inhibitory processing. However, recent findings challenge the notion that aging leads to global impairments in inhibition. To reconcile these mixed findings, we investigated how aging modulates multiple mechanisms of attentional control by tracking the timing and direction of eye movements. When engaged in feature-search mode and proactive distractor suppression, older adults made fewer first fixations to the target but inhibited the task-irrelevant salient distractor as effectively as did young adults. However, when engaged in singleton-search mode and required to reactively disengage from the distractor, older adults made significantly more first saccades toward the task-irrelevant salient distractor and showed increased fixation times in orienting to the target, longer dwell times on incorrect saccades, and increased saccadic reaction times compared with young adults. Our findings reveal that aging differently impairs attentional control depending on whether visual search requires proactive distractor suppression or reactive distractor disengagement. Furthermore, our oculomotor measures reveal both age-related deficits and age equivalence in various mechanisms of attention, including goal-directed orienting, selection history, disengagement, and distractor inhibition. These findings help explain why conclusions of age-related declines or age equivalence in mechanisms of attentional control are task specific and reveal that older adults do not exhibit global impairments in mechanisms of inhibition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Eye movements reveal age differences in how arousal modulates saliency priority but not attention processing speed

The arousal-biased competition theory posits that inducing arousal increases attentional priority of salient stimuli while reducing priority of non-pertinent stimuli. However, unlike in young adults, older adults rarely exhibit shifts in priority under increased arousal, and prior studies have proposed different neural mechanisms to explain how arousal differentially modulates selective attention in older adults. Therefore, we investigated how the threat of unpredictable shock differentially modulates attentional control mechanisms in young and older adults by observing eye movements. Participants completed two oculomotor search tasks in which the salient distractor was typically captured by attention (singleton search) or proactively suppressed (feature search). We found that arousal did not modulate attentional priority for any stimulus among older adults nor affect the speed of attention processing in either age group. Furthermore, we observed that arousal modulated pupil sizes and found a correlation between evoked pupil responses and oculomotor function. Our findings suggest age differences in how the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system interacts with neural networks of attention and oculomotor function.

Changes in the Networks of Attention across the Lifespan: A Graphical Meta-Analysis

Three Posnerian networks of attention (alerting, orienting, and executive control) have been distinguished on the bases of behavioural, neuropsychological, and neuroscientific evidence. Here, we examined the trajectories of these networks throughout the human lifespan using the various Attention Network Tests (ANTs), which were specifically developed to measure the efficacy of these networks. The ANT Database was used to identify relevant research, resulting in the inclusion of 36 publications. We conducted a graphical meta-analysis using network scores from each study, based on reaction time plotted as a function of age group. Evaluation of attentional networks from childhood to early adulthood suggests that the alerting network develops relatively quickly, and reaches near-adult level by the age of 12. The developmental pattern of the orienting network seems to depend on the information value of the spatial cues. Executive control network scores show a consistent decrease (improvement) with age in childhood. During adulthood (ages 19-75), changes in alerting depend on the modality of the warning signal, while a moderate increase in orienting scores was seen with increasing age. Whereas executive control scores, as measured in reaction time, increase (deterioration) from young adulthood into later adulthood an opposite trend is seen when scores are based on error rates.

Specific but not general declines in attention and executive function with aging: Converging cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence across the adult lifespan

Objective

Attention and executive function (EF) are vulnerable to aging. However, whether all these functions generally decline with aging is not known. Furthermore, most evidence is based on cross-sectional data and fewer follow-up data are available in the literature. Longitudinal follow-up studies are necessary to characterize individualized and precise changes in cognitive function. Additionally, relatively few aging studies have included middle-aged adults to examine age-related differences in attention and EF. Therefore, this study aims to examine whether general or specific attention and EF decline with aging from adulthood to old age by combining cross-sectional and longitudinal follow-up approaches.

Methods

This study recruited 253 participants aged 20 to 78  years. passing a prescreening procedure (see main text for detail) for the baseline session, and 123 of them were invited to return 1 ~ 2  years after their first visit to participate in the follow-up session. The participants completed a series of attention and EF tasks at both the baseline and follow-up sessions, which measured alerting, orienting, conflict control, stopping, memory updating, and switching abilities. We applied linear and nonlinear regression models to evaluate the cross-sectional age effect on attention and EF and employed a modified Brinley plot to inspect follow-up performance against baseline in attention and EF.

Results

The results of cross-sectional data showed that older adults exhibited decreased efficiency in alerting, stopping, and memory updating but paradoxically increased efficiency in conflict control and switching abilities and no changes in orienting efficiency with age. However, the results of longitudinal data showed that only alerting and memory updating continued to show decreased efficiency. Furthermore, conflict control and switching showed increased efficiency with aging, whereas the orienting network, and stopping no longer showed decreased efficiency.

Conclusion

Thus, converging the cross-sectional and longitudinal data showed that the alerting and memory updating function exhibited the most robust deficit with age (cross-sectional) and aging (longitudinal). Alerting and memory updating abilities are crucial survival skills for human beings. Therefore, developing methods to prevent and improve an individual’s alertness and working memory ability is an important practical issue in aging research.

Latent profile analysis of depression among older adults living alone in China

BACKGROUND

The number of older adults living alone has increased significantly. Depression is one of the significant mental health problems they face; classifying depressive conditions into homogeneous subgroups can help discover hidden information.

METHODS

The data comes from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify depression subgroups among elderly living alone, Chi-square tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to univariate analysis, multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the related factors.

RESULTS

1831 older adults living alone were identified and classified as low-level (30.4 %), moderate-level (55.3 %) and high-level (14.4 %). All variables, except age, were significant in the univariate analysis. Multinomial logistic regression showed that not participating in exercise, sometimes interacting with friends, anxiety symptoms, and impaired IADL were associated with the moderate- and high-level of depression in older adults living alone; good or fair self-rated health and life satisfaction were associated with the low-level of depression in older adults living alone. Anxiety symptoms were associated with high-level of depression in older adults living alone compared to moderate-level; good or fair self-rated health and life satisfaction were associated with moderate-level of depression in older adults living alone.

LIMITATIONS

The CES-D-10 cannot fully determine the presence of depression in elderly people living alone at high-level.

CONCLUSIONS

In future primary health care, it would be more meaningful to provide targeted interventions for different subgroups of depression in older adults living alone.

Linear Mixed-Model Analysis Better Captures Subcomponents of Attention in a Small Sample Size of Persons With Aphasia

PURPOSE

Although there are several reports of attention deficits in aphasia, studies are typically limited to a single component within this complex domain. Furthermore, interpretation of results is affected by small sample size, intraindividual variability, task complexity, or nonparametric statistical models of performance comparison. The purpose of this study is to explore multiple subcomponents of attention in persons with aphasia (PWA) and compare findings and implications from various statistical methods-nonparametric, mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA), and linear mixed-effects model (LMEM)-when applied to a small sample size.

METHOD

Eleven PWA and nine age- and education-matched healthy controls (HCs) completed the computer-based Attention Network Test (ANT). ANT examines the effects of four types of warning cues (no, double, central, spatial) and two flanker conditions (congruent, incongruent) to provide an efficient way to assess the three subcomponents of attention (alerting, orienting, and executive control). Individual response time and accuracy data from each participant are considered for data analysis.

RESULTS

Nonparametric analyses showed no significant differences between the groups on the three subcomponents of attention. Both mixed ANOVA and LMEM showed statistical significance on alerting effect in HCs, orienting effect in PWA, and executive control effect in both PWA and HCs. However, LMEM analyses additionally highlighted significant differences between the groups (PWA vs. HCs) for executive control effect, which were not evident on either ANOVA or nonparametric tests.

CONCLUSIONS

By considering the random effect of participant ID, LMEM was able to show deficits in alerting and executive control ability in PWA when compared to HCs. LMEM accounts for the intraindividual variability based on individual response time performances instead of relying on measures of central tendencies.

Adult Age Differences in the Temporal Dynamics of Motivated Attention

Reward-based motivation modulates attention and cognitive control across the life span, but little is known about age differences in the temporal dynamics of motivated attention. The current study examined the effects of financial incentives on visual attention using ERPs. Participants (26 younger, aged 18-33 years; 24 older, aged 65-95 years) completed an incentivized flanker task in which trial-level incentive cues signaled the availability of performance-contingent reward, and subsequent alerting cues signaled the onset of the flanker target. ERP components of interest included cue-related components (incentive-cue P2 and contingent negative variation, and alerting-cue N1) as well as target-related components (target N1 and P3). Transient effects of incentives were assessed by comparing ERP amplitudes across incentive and non-incentive trials from mixed-incentive blocks. Sustained effects of incentives were assessed by comparing ERP amplitudes across non-incentive trials from mixed-incentive blocks and non-incentive trials from pure non-incentive blocks. Younger adults showed transient effects of incentives on all components, whereas older adults showed these effects for incentive-cue P2 and alerting-cue N1 only. Both age groups showed sustained effects of incentives on cue-locked ERPs, but only younger adults showed sustained effects on target-locked ERPs. RT patterns mirrored the ERP findings, in that younger adults showed greater incentive-based modulation than older adults, but at a greater cost to accuracy. Overall, these findings reveal widespread age differences in the dynamics of incentive-motivated attention and cognitive control, particularly at longer timescales.

Happy and sad music acutely modulate different types of attention in older adults

Of the three subtypes of attention outlined by the attentional subsystems model, alerting (vigilance or arousal needed for task completion) and executive control (the ability to inhibit distracting information while completing a goal) are susceptible to age-related decline, while orienting remains relatively stable. Yet, few studies have investigated strategies that may acutely maintain or promote attention in typically aging older adults. Music listening may be one potential strategy for attentional maintenance as past research shows that listening to happy music characterized by a fast tempo and major mode increases cognitive task performance, likely by increasing cognitive arousal. The present study sought to investigate whether listening to happy music (fast tempo, major mode) impacts alerting, orienting, and executive control attention in 57 middle and older-aged adults (M = 61.09 years, SD = 7.16). Participants completed the Attention Network Test (ANT) before and after listening to music rated as happy or sad (slow tempo, minor mode), or no music (i.e., silence) for 10 min. Our results demonstrate that happy music increased alerting attention, particularly when relevant and irrelevant information conflicted within a trial. Contrary to what was predicted, sad music modulated executive control performance. Overall, our findings indicate that music written in the major mode with a fast tempo (happy) and minor mode with a slow tempo (sad) modulate different aspects of attention in the short-term.

Effectiveness of feedback-based technology on physical and cognitive abilities in the elderly

Aging raises a social and health challenge because the passing of time causes changes in cognitive and physical functions that impair functionality and quality of life. In addition, advancements in technology and information technology have led to the development of new techniques for retraining based on the feedback technology provides. To solve the negative consequences of aging, a randomized clinical trial was carried out to assess the effectiveness of a protocol using feedback-based technology to improve physical and cognitive functions in older adults. For the purpose of this study, 200 patients were selected from a Social and Community Services Center in the province of Seville and only 46 of them became participants of the study (after applying the inclusion criteria). These patients were divided into two groups: control and experimental. Physical and cognitive abilities were assessed using the Miniexamen cognoscitivo Test (an adaptation of the MiniMental examination test), Yesevage's Depression Scale, Oddball Test, Attention Network Test, Berg Scale, Tinetti Scale, and Timed Up and Go Test. The intervention applied to the experimental group consisted of a supervised protocol using the Nintendo® Wii video game console and the Wii-Fit© video game during 16 sessions, 2 times a week with a duration of 30 min per session. The control group did not receive any treatment. The experimental group showed statistically significant improvements in all the physical variables (balance, gait, autonomy, and fall risk), as other authors had proven, and in memory and reaction times; there were no improvements in attention networks. The control group (placebo) even showed a decrease in their functions, with worse results on the Timed up and Go test Scale. The intervention using feedback-based technology has been proven effective in improving physical and cognitive abilities and in preventing and promoting healthy aging.

Association between blood pressure control status, visit-to-visit blood pressure variability, and cognitive function in elderly Chinese: A nationwide study

Background

Cognitive function is a concern among the elderly, which is related to the quality of life, life expectancy, and economic burdens. The relationship between blood pressure (BP) control status, visit-to-visit BP variability, and cognitive function remains controversial.

Methods

We aimed to explore the association between BP control status at baseline, visit-to-visit BP variability, and cognitive function. This study included 3,511 elderlies in the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, covering four waves for 7-year follow-up (baseline 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2018). BP was measured in Wave 2011, 2013, and 2015. Cognitive function was measured by Mini-Mental State Exam in Wave 2018. Participants were divided into two groups: mid-old group for reflecting midlife BP and cognition (45–59 years at baseline but aged 60 or over in Wave 2018), and old-old group for reflecting late-life BP and cognition (aged 60 or over at baseline). We use univariate analysis and general linear model to analyze.

Results

Late-life BP showed stronger associations with cognitive function than midlife BP. As to late-life BP control status, controlled hypertension group get higher cognitive score than uncontrolled hypertension group in language (adjusted β = −0.34, 95%CI −0.68 to 0.00), and untreated hypertension group in orientation (adjusted β = −0.41, 95%CI −0.72 to −0.11), language (adjusted β = −0.35, 95%CI −0.67 to −0.04), and total (adjusted β = −0.99, 95%CI −1.85 to −0.12). Regarding visit-to-visit BP variability, midlife visit-to-visit systolic blood pressure (SBP) variability was associated with language (adjusted β = −3.70, 95% CI −5.83 to −1.57), while late-life visit-to-visit SBP variability was associated with orientation (adjusted β = −2.99, 95% CI −4.84 to −1.14), recall (adjusted β = −1.69, 95% CI −2.89 to −0.48), language (adjusted β = −2.26, 95% CI −4.13 to −0.38), and total (adjusted β = −9.50, 95% CI −14.71 to −4.28); Midlife diastolic blood pressure (DBP) variability and pulse pressure (PP) variability showed a significant relationship with language (adjusted β = 3.25, 95% CI −1.31 to −5.19) and calculation (adjusted β = −0.26, 95% CI −0.47 to −0.04), respectively. No significant correlation was found between midlife BP control status, late-life visit-to-visit DBP variability, late-life visit-to-visit PP variability, and cognitive score. There was no significant correlation between BP and memory.

Conclusions

BP control status and visit-to-visit BP variability were significantly related to cognitive function among the Chinese elderly. Receiving effective late-life antihypertensive treatment and keeping SBP stable might contribute to prevent the development of cognitive impairment and dementia, especially for orientation and language function.

Emotion-related regulation strategy use in preschool-age children who stutter

PURPOSE

Past findings indicate the quality and quantity of emotion regulation often differs between preschool-age children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS). The purpose of this study was to identify whether specific emotion-related regulatory strategy types differ between preschool-age CWS and CWNS during a temptation task.

METHODS

Participants were 13 CWS and 13 CWNS between 3;2 and 5;7 (years;months), matched for gender and age (+/- 6 months). Participants completed a Forbidden Toy paradigm, a resistance to temptation task, in which the children were asked to refrain from touching a toy. Types of emotion-related regulation, including (1) verbal regulation, (2) behavioral regulation, and (3) attentional regulation, were behaviorally coded during the temptation task.

RESULTS

A higher proportion of the CWNS (92%) failed to resist the temptation to touch the toy than CWS (48%). Additionally, a higher proportion of the CWS (23%), compared to CWNS (0%), presented with signs of distress, resulting in their task ending prematurely. Limited differences were detected in the types of emotion-related regulatory strategies used by CWS, or the frequency of those strategies. CWNS, compared to the CWS, used more approach-related behavioral strategies.

CONCLUSIONS

Interpretations of these findings must be mitigated by the observation that a higher proportion of CWS than CWNS demonstrated distress during the paradigm, suggesting a need for further research into the interplay between emotional reactivity and emotion regulation for preschool-age CWS.

The effect of age on the early stage of face perception in depressed patients: An ERP study

The aim of the present study was to investigate the age effect on face perceptual processing in MDD patients by analyzing the N170 component in response to faces and objects presented in upright and inverted conditions. For controls, although the N170 amplitude, overall, did not differ between young and middle-aged participants, the size of N170 inversion effect was larger for young than for middle-aged controls, but the N170 face effect was not influenced by age. For young participants, MDD patients showed N170 amplitude similar to controls and neither the N170 face effect nor the N170 inversion effect were influenced by depression. For middle-aged participants, MDD patients revealed larger N170 than did controls, and both the size of N170 inversion effect and the N170 face effect were larger for MDD patients than controls. These data indicate that, at least at the early stage of face perception, there is altered face perception in middle-aged but not in young MDD patients. This research could provide new evidence for clinical assessment of cognitive function in MDD patients.

Evidence that ageing yields improvements as well as declines across attention and executive functions

Many but not all cognitive abilities decline during ageing. Some even improve due to lifelong experience. The critical capacities of attention and executive functions have been widely posited to decline. However, these capacities are composed of multiple components, so multifaceted ageing outcomes might be expected. Indeed, prior findings suggest that whereas certain attention/executive functions clearly decline, others do not, with hints that some might even improve. We tested ageing effects on the alerting, orienting and executive (inhibitory) networks posited by Posner and Petersen's influential theory of attention, in a cross-sectional study of a large sample (N = 702) of participants aged 58-98. Linear and nonlinear analyses revealed that whereas the efficiency of the alerting network decreased with age, orienting and executive inhibitory efficiency increased, at least until the mid-to-late 70s. Sensitivity analyses indicated that the patterns were robust. The results suggest variability in age-related changes across attention/executive functions, with some declining while others improve.

Semantic knowledge attenuates age-related differences in event segmentation and episodic memory

While semantic and episodic memory may be distinct memory systems, their interdependence is substantial. For instance, decades of work have shown that semantic knowledge facilitates episodic memory. Here, we aim to clarify this interactive relationship by determining whether semantic knowledge facilitates the acquisition of new episodic memories, in part, by influencing an encoding mechanism, event segmentation. In the current study, we evaluated the extent to which semantic knowledge shapes how people segment ongoing activity and how such knowledge-related benefits in segmentation affect episodic memory performance. To investigate these effects, we combined data across three studies that had young and older adults segment and remember videos of everyday activities that were either familiar or unfamiliar to their age group. We found age-related differences in event-segmentation ability and memory performance, but only when older adults lacked semantic knowledge. Most importantly, when they had access to relevant semantic knowledge, older adults segmented and remembered information similar to young adults. Our findings indicate that older adults can use semantic knowledge to effectively encode and retrieve everyday information. These effects suggest that future interventions can leverage older adults' intact semantic knowledge to attenuate age-related deficits in event segmentation and episodic long-term memory.

Impaired cognitive functioning in stress-induced exhaustion disorder: a new tablet-based assessment

BACKGROUND

The adverse health effects of stress induced exhaustion disorder (SED) cause increasing concern in Western societies. This disorder is characterized by severe fatigue, decreased tolerance to further stress, and attention and memory lapses. Despite subjective complaints, individual cognitive deficits are not always detected in a clinical setting, which calls for the validation of more sensitive instruments.

AIM

The objective of this study was to investigate if a short, tablet-based serial naming task, MapCog Spectra (MCS) could be used as a marker for cognitive problems in SED.

PARTICIPANTS

The study comprised of 39 subjects (35 females, four males) with SED. Their mean age was 46,8 years (SD 10.1; range 30-60 yrs.). All participants were healthcare professionals, with a college or university degree, doctors, registered nurses, and psychologists.

METHODS

The MCS was used to assess the number of aberrant pauses during serial naming of coloured geometrical shapes. The Coding, Matrix Reasoning, Digit Span, Symbol Search of the WAIS-IV, and RUFF 2&7 tests, were administered together with a short interview.

RESULTS

Mean values were within normal reference limits for all tests, except for the MCS, which showed a significantly higher number of aberrant pauses (p < 0,001) in the SED group, compared to normal reference values. Although subjects performed within normal limits on the RUFF 2&7, a significant difference between individuals was found in the performance strategy of the participants.

CONCLUSION

Here we report that subjects with SED have performance deficits on the MCS, in terms of aberrant pause times, despite average performance on WAIS-IV tests measuring inductive reasoning, processing speed, working memory, and attention. We also demonstrate that subjects use different strategies to overcome their problems. These findings add to the growing evidence of cognitive deficits in SED and that the MCS might aid neuropsychologists in disentangling cognitive markers, important to substantiate the subjective complaints of affected individuals.

The Continuous Matching Task (CMT) - real-time procedural stimulus generation for adaptive testing of attention

The Continuous Matching Task (CMT) is a novel paradigm designed to measure sustained attention and alertness. It is a special type of Continuous Performance Task (CPT) that utilizes truly continuous stimulus material. Stimuli are generated in real-time by a procedural algorithm which also enables adaptive testing. The task is highly flexible and can be used in either single or dual-task configurations that also allow for task mixing. The functionality of the algorithm and applications are presented. The viability of the CMT is tested and results are compared with similar tasks, i.e. Stroop-Task and Conner's CPT (CCPT), as well as self-reports of ADHD in adults in a Multi-Trait-Multi-Method approach in a sample of N = 122 participants. Self-reports and measurements of heart rate variability during testing are analyzed to infer and compare mental workload during tasks. Overall, variants of the CMT induce a higher mental workload than the other tasks, and employing the dual-task CMT with adaptive difficulty resulted in the highest reliability and validity. Results indicate that the CMT is primarily a measure of alertness and processing speed and benefits from adaptive testing.

Development of attention networks from childhood to young adulthood: A study of performance, intraindividual variability and cortical thickness

Human cognitive development is manifold, with different functions developing at different speeds at different ages. Attention is an important domain of this cognitive development, and involves distinct developmental trajectories for separate functions, including conflict processing, selection of sensory input and alertness. In children, several studies using the Attention Network Test (ANT) have investigated the development of three attentional networks that carry out the functions of executive control, orienting and alerting. There is, however, a lack of studies on the development of these attentional components across adolescence, limiting our understanding of their protracted development. To fill this knowledge gap, we performed a mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal study using mixed methods to examine the development of the attentional components and their intraindividual variability from late childhood to young adulthood (n = 287, n observations = 408, age range = 8.5-26.7 years, mean follow up interval = 4.4 years). The results indicated that executive control stabilized during late adolescence, while orienting and alerting continued to develop into young adulthood. In addition, a continuous development into young adulthood was observed for the intraindividual variability measures of orienting and alerting. In a subsample with available magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data (n = 169, n observations = 281), higher alerting scores were associated with thicker cortices within a right prefrontal cortical region and greater age-related cortical thinning in left rolandic operculum, while higher orienting scores were associated with greater age-related cortical thinning in frontal and parietal regions. Finally, increased consistency of orienting performance was associated with thinner cortex in prefrontal regions and reduced age-related thinning in frontal regions.

Influence of Background Musical Emotions on Attention in Congenital Amusia

Congenital amusia in its most common form is a disorder characterized by a musical pitch processing deficit. Although pitch is involved in conveying emotion in music, the implications for pitch deficits on musical emotion judgements is still under debate. Relatedly, both limited and spared musical emotion recognition was reported in amusia in conditions where emotion cues were not determined by musical mode or dissonance. Additionally, assumed links between musical abilities and visuo-spatial attention processes need further investigation in congenital amusics. Hence, we here test to what extent musical emotions can influence attentional performance. Fifteen congenital amusic adults and fifteen healthy controls matched for age and education were assessed in three attentional conditions: executive control (distractor inhibition), alerting, and orienting (spatial shift) while music expressing either joy, tenderness, sadness, or tension was presented. Visual target detection was in the normal range for both accuracy and response times in the amusic relative to the control participants. Moreover, in both groups, music exposure produced facilitating effects on selective attention that appeared to be driven by the arousal dimension of musical emotional content, with faster correct target detection during joyful compared to sad music. These findings corroborate the idea that pitch processing deficits related to congenital amusia do not impede other cognitive domains, particularly visual attention. Furthermore, our study uncovers an intact influence of music and its emotional content on the attentional abilities of amusic individuals. The results highlight the domain-selectivity of the pitch disorder in congenital amusia, which largely spares the development of visual attention and affective systems.

Normative data of neuropsychological tests of attention and executive functions in Ecuadorian adult population

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to generate normative data for five tests of attention and executive functions (M-WCST, Stroop test, TMT, BTA, and SDMT), in a group of 322 Ecuadorian adults from Quito between the ages of 18 and 85.

METHOD

Multiple regression analyzes taking into account age, education, and gender were used to generate the normative data.

RESULTS

Age and education were significantly related to test performance such that scores decreased with age and improved as a function of education. An online calculator is provided to generate normative test scores.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first study that presents normative data for tests of executive functions and attention in an Ecuadorian adult population. This data will improve the clinical practice of neuropsychology and help to develop the field in the country.

The Contribution of Oculomotor Functions to Rates of Visual Information Processing in Younger and Older Adults

Oculomotor functions are established surrogate measures of visual attention shifting and rate of information processing, however, the temporal characteristics of saccades and fixations have seldom been compared in healthy educated samples of younger and older adults. Thus, the current study aimed to compare duration of eye movement components in younger (18-25 years) and older (50-81 years) adults during text reading and during object/alphanumeric Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) tasks. The current study also aimed to examine the contribution of oculomotor functions to threshold time needed for accurate performance on visually-driven cognitive tasks (Inspection Time [IT] and Change Detection [CD]). Results showed that younger adults fixated on individual stimuli for significantly longer than the older participants, while older adults demonstrated significantly longer saccade durations than the younger group. Results also demonstrated that older adults required longer threshold durations (i.e., performed slower) on the visually-driven cognitive tasks, however, the age-group time difference on the CD task was eradicated when the effects of saccade duration were covaried. Thus, these results suggest that age-related cognitive decline is also related to increased duration of saccades and hence, highlights the need to dissociate the age-related motor constraints on the temporal aspects of oculomotor function from visuo-cognitive speed of processing.

Cognitive processes in aging effects on attentional alerting

Alerting, the process of achieving and maintaining a state of optimal vigilance, is crucial for detecting relevant stimuli and task performance. Age-related decline in the ability to use alerting cues is widely reported and attributed to changes in noradrenergic signaling. However, it remains to be determined whether aging affects all forms of alerting cues equally and whether older adults differently modulate their alerting sensitivity based on differences in cue predictivity relevant to the target task. We examined the performance of 135 younger adults and 103 older adults on three versions of the Attention Networks Test, using locational but spatially nonpredictive visual cues, locational spatially predictive visual cues, and spatially predictive auditory cues. Analysis of alerting effects indicated that while older adults derived less benefit from visual alerting cues than younger adults, they used auditory alerting cues equally well. Furthermore, cue spatial predictivity did not impact on aging effects on alerting. This heterogeneity in aging effects on alerting may indicate that they result primarily from cognitive rather than neuromodulatory changes.

Attentional networks functioning and vigilance in expert musicians and non-musicians

Previous literature has shown cognitive improvements related to musical training. Attention is one cognitive aspect in which musicians exhibit improvements compared to non-musicians. However, previous studies show inconsistent results regarding certain attentional processes, suggesting that benefits associated with musical training appear only in some processes. The present study aimed to investigate the attentional and vigilance abilities in expert musicians with a fine-grained measure: the ANTI-Vea (ANT for Interactions and Vigilance-executive and arousal components; Luna et al. in J Neurosci Methods 306:77-87, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2018.05.011 , 2018). This task allows measuring the functioning of the three Posner and Petersen's networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control) along with two different components of vigilance (executive and arousal vigilance). Using propensity-score matching, 49 adult musicians (18-35 years old) were matched in an extensive set of confounding variables with a control group of 49 non-musicians. Musicians showed advantages in processing speed and in the two components of vigilance, with some specific aspects of musicianship such as years of practice or years of lessons correlating with these measures. Although these results should be taken with caution, given its correlational nature, one possible explanation is that musical training can specifically enhance some aspects of attention. Nevertheless, our correlational design does not allow us to rule out other possibilities such as the presence of cognitive differences prior to the onset of training. Moreover, the advantages were observed in an extra-musical context, which suggests that musical training could transfer its benefits to cognitive processes loosely related to musical skills. The absence of effects in executive control, frequently reported in previous literature, is discussed based on our extensive control of confounds.

Aging in cognitive control of social processing: evidence from the attention network test

Aging seems to be associated with impairment of attentional network functioning. It is not known whether social information can modulate this age-related decline. We used three variants of Attention Network test to examine the age-related decline of attentional effects in response to stimuli with and without social-cognitive content. Three groups of younger, middle-aged, and older participants performed the ANT, using fish, drawings, or photographs of faces looking to the left or right as target and flanker stimuli. The results showed that both executive attention and alerting were more resistant to the age-related decline with social stimuli and that orienting attention scores showed a progressive increase with age in the presence of this kind of stimuli. These findings underline the importance of social information in modulating and contrasting the age-related decline and support the status of human faces as a special class of visual stimuli for the human attentional systems.

Inflammation Mediates Body Weight and Ageing Effects on Psychomotor Slowing

Inflammation (immune system activation) affects neuronal function and may have consequences for the efficiency and speed of functional brain processes. Indeed, unusually slow psychomotor speed, a measure predictive of behavioural performance and health outcomes, is found with obesity and ageing, two conditions also associated with chronic inflammation. Yet whether inflammation is the mediating factor remains unclear. Here, we assessed inflammation by indexing interleukin-6 level in blood and measured psychomotor speed as well as indices of selective visual attention in young (mean = 26 years) or old (mean = 71 years) adults (N = 83) who were either lean or currently significantly overweight (mean body mass index = 22.4 and 33.8, respectively). Inflammation was positively and significantly correlated with psychomotor speed, age, and body mass index but not with attention measures. Using mediation analyses we show for the first time that inflammation fully accounts for the significant psychomotor slowing found in those with high BMI. Moreover, we further show that age-related psychomotor slowing is partially mediated by inflammation. These findings support the proposal that reducing inflammation may mitigate weight- and age-related cognitive decline and thereby improve performance on daily tasks and health outcomes more generally.

Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention

Life-long experience of using two or more languages has been shown to enhance cognitive control abilities in young and elderly bilinguals in comparison to their monolingual peers. This advantage has been found to be larger in older adults in comparison to younger adults, suggesting that bilingualism provides advantages in cognitive control abilities. However, studies showing this effect have used a variety of tasks (Simon Task, Stroop task, Flanker Task), each measuring different subcomponents of attention and raising mixed results. At the same time, attention is not a unitary function but comprises of subcomponents which can be distinctively addressed within the Attention Network Test (ANT) (1, 2). The purpose of this work was to examine the neurofunctional correlates of the subcomponents of attention in healthy young and elderly bilinguals taking into account the L2 age of acquisition, language usage, and proficiency. Participants performed an fMRI version of the ANT task, and speed, accuracy, and BOLD data were collected. As expected, results show slower overall response times with increasing age. The ability to take advantage of the warning cues also decreased with age, resulting in reduced alerting and orienting abilities in older adults. fMRI results showed an increase in neurofunctional activity in the frontal and parietal areas in elderly bilinguals when compared to young bilinguals. Furthermore, higher L2 proficiency correlated negatively with activation in frontal area, and that faster RTs correlated negatively with activation in frontal and parietal areas. Such a correlation, especially with L2 proficiency was not present in young bilinguals and provides evidence for a bilingual advantage in the alerting subcomponent of attention that characterizes elderly bilinguals' performance. This study thus provides extra details about the bilingual advantage in the subcomponent of attention, in older bilinguals. Consequently, speaking more than one language impacts cognition and the brain later in life.

Visual Information Processing in Young and Older Adults

Decline in information processing with age is well-documented in the scientific literature. However, some discrepancy remains in relation to which cognitive domains are most susceptible to the aging process and which may remain intact. Furthermore, information processing has not been investigated nor considered as a function of affect, familiarity and complexity of tasks in a single experimental study. Thus, the current study investigated rate of visual information processing in 67 young university students (M age = 19.64 years) and 33 educated healthy older adults (M age = 70.33 years), while accounting for depression, anxiety and stress symptoms using the DASS. Rates of visual processing were measured as minimum time of stimulus exposure duration required for correct object recognition on a simple visual task [Inspection Time (IT)], and on a more complex visual cognitive task known as Change Detection (CD)] as well as words per minute on a text reading task (FastaReada). The results demonstrated significantly slower performance by older adults on the IT and CD, but comparable rates of text reading on a semantically more complex, but ecologically valid and familiar visual task that requires organized sequential shifts in attention via eye movements, continuous visual processing, access to working memory and semantic comprehension. The results also demonstrated that affective influences did not play a role in the older adults task performance, and that changes in cognitive domains may begin with older adults being slower to attend to and identify newly appearing familiar objects, as well as slower to encode and embed new information in memory during tasks that require a less practiced/familiar task strategy.

Efficiency of attentional networks in musicians and non-musicians

Music is a complex and properly human skill. Previous studies indicate that systematic musical training induces specific structural brain changes and improves audio-motor functions. However, whether these benefits can transfer into functional improvements of attentional skills is still little known. To shed light on this issue, in the present study we explored the relationship between long-term musical training and the efficiency of the attentional system. We used the attention network test (ANT) to compare the performance of the alerting, orienting and executive attentional networks of professional pianists against a matched group of non-musician adults. We found that musicians were significantly faster to respond across the ANT task, and that the executive attentional network was more efficient in musicians than non-musicians. We found no differences in the efficiency of the alerting and orienting networks between both groups. Interestingly, we found that the efficiency of the executive system improves with the years of musical training, even when controlling for age. We also found that the three attentional networks of the non-musicians were functionally independent. However, in the case of the musicians, the efficiency of the alerting and orienting systems was associated. These findings provide evidence of a potential transfer effect from systematic musical training into inhibitory attentional control.

A Review on the Trajectory of Attentional Mechanisms in Aging and the Alzheimer's Disease Continuum through the Attention Network Test

Multiple domains of cognition are known to decline in both normal aging and in the trajectory towards Alzheimer's disease (AD). While declines in episodic memory are most well-known in both normal aging and AD, some of these memory differences might stem from early deteriorations in attention that have consequences for later memory. Further complicating the matter is that attention is a multifaceted construct that might be differentially affected in normal aging and AD. According to cognitive neuroscience models of attention, three types of attention networks exist: alerting, orienting, and executive. Efficiency of these three networks can be captured using the Attention Network Test (ANT). We reviewed the literature investigating differences in attention networks using the ANT as a function of normal aging and the AD trajectory, which included people at risk for AD, preclinical stages of AD, mild cognitive impairment, and those diagnosed with AD. We found that normal aging and the AD trajectory evidenced different patterns of attentional declines. Whereas normal aging was most consistently associated with impairments in alerting, early phases of the AD trajectory were most consistently associated with impairments in executive attention, and later phases of the AD trajectory were mixed. The mixed results with AD are largely attributed to small sample sizes and confounding effects of general slowing. These findings highlight key gaps in the literature linking different phases of AD while also highlighting the usefulness of the ANT to distinguish normal aging from the AD trajectory, especially in the earliest phases of the disease process.

ACC Sulcal Patterns and Their Modulation on Cognitive Control Efficiency Across Lifespan: A Neuroanatomical Study on Bilinguals and Monolinguals

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a key structure implicated in the regulation of cognitive control (CC). Previous studies suggest that variability in the ACC sulcal pattern—a neurodevelopmental marker unaffected by maturation or plasticity after birth—is associated with intersubject differences in CC performance. Here, we investigated whether bilingual experience modulates the effects of ACC sulcal variability on CC performance across the lifespan. Using structural MRI, we first established the distribution of the ACC sulcal patterns in a large sample of healthy individuals (N = 270) differing on gender and ethnicity. Second, a participants’ subsample (N = 157) was selected to test whether CC performance was differentially affected by ACC sulcation in bilinguals and monolinguals across age. A prevalent leftward asymmetry unaffected by gender or ethnicity was reported. Sulcal variability in the ACC predicted CC performance differently in bilinguals and monolinguals, with a reversed pattern of structure–function relationship: asymmetrical versus symmetrical ACC sulcal patterns were associated with a performance advantage in monolinguals and a performance detriment to bilinguals and vice versa. Altogether, these findings provide novel insights on the dynamic interplay between early neurodevelopment, environmental background and cognitive efficiency across age.

Neuroplasticity across the lifespan and aging effects in bilinguals and monolinguals

Evidence that bilingualism protects against age-related neurocognitive decline is mixed. One relatively consistent finding is that bilingual seniors have greater grey matter volume (GMV) in regions implicated in executive control (EC) and language processing. Here, we compare the neuroplastic effects of bilingual experience on the EC network of young and aging populations directly, and for the first time we evaluate the extent to which such effects may predict executive control performance across age. We used GMV as an index of neural reserve and response time (RT) performance on the Flanker task for measuring EC efficiency. In the presence of age-related widespread GM deterioration, bilinguals had greater GMV than monolinguals in key regions of interest across age. Moreover, whereas EC performance in monolingual seniors was strictly related to GMV, this was not observed for bilingual seniors or younger participants in either group. Interactions between expected effects-of-age and language group on the relationships between GMV and RT suggested that bilingualism affords differential benefits across the lifespan. In younger participants, greater GMV offered no behavioral benefit on EC performance, whilst it did for seniors. It thus appears that age-related cognitive decline following GMV loss in the EC network is delayed in bilinguals.

Brain Aging: Uncovering Cortical Characteristics of Healthy Aging in Young Adults

Despite extensive research in the field of aging neuroscience, it still remains unclear whether age related cortical changes can be detected in different functional networks of younger adults and whether these networks respond identically to healthy aging. We collected high-resolution brain anatomical data from 56 young healthy adults (mean age = 30.8 ± 8.1 years, 29 males). We performed whole brain parcellation into seven functional networks, including visual, somatomotor, dorsal attention, ventral attention, limbic, frontoparietal and default mode networks. We estimated intracranial volume (ICV) and averaged cortical thickness (CT), cortical surface area (CSA) and cortical volume (CV) over each hemisphere as well as for each network. Averaged cortical measures over each hemisphere, especially CT and CV, were significantly lower in older individuals compared to younger ones (one-way ANOVA, p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons). There were negative correlations between age and averaged CT and CV over each hemisphere (p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons) as well as between age and ICV (p = 0.05). Network level analysis showed that age was negatively correlated with CT for all functional networks (p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons), apart from the limbic network. While age was unrelated to CSA, it was negatively correlated with CV across several functional networks (p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons). We also showed positive associations between CV and CT and between CV and CSA for all networks (p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons). We interpret the lack of association between age and CT of the limbic network as evidence that the limbic system may be particularly resistant to age-related declines during this period of life, whereas the significant age-related declines in averaged CT over each hemisphere as well as in all other six networks suggests that CT may serve as a reliable biomarker to capture the effect of normal aging. Due to the simultaneous dependence of CV on CT and CSA, CV was unable to identify such effects of normal aging consistently for the other six networks, but there were negative associations observed between age and averaged CV over each hemisphere as well as between age and ICV. Our findings suggest that the identification of early cortical changes within various functional networks during normal aging might be useful for predicting the effect of aging on the efficiency of functional performance even during early adulthood.

The effects of age on visual expertise for print

Progressive visual processing decline is a known factor in aging. The present study investigates the evolution of visual expertise for printed stimuli with aging. Fifty-five participants of increasing age (20-30, 40-50, 60-70, 75-85years old) were recruited. Behavioral and EEG data were collected during a lexical decision task, in which words and symbol strings were presented. Analyses of EEG data focused mainly on three major points: visual expertise for print, automatization of the expertise and differences in attentional demand between the processing of words and symbols. Results indicated a preservation of visual expertise with age, with larger N170 amplitude for words than for symbols. Moreover, a decrease in stimulus processing speed was observed as a function of age. No difference in attentional demand as a function of stimulus was observed.

Beyond a Differential Diagnosis: Cognitive and Morphometric Decoding of Information Processing Speed in Senior Adults with DSM-5 Mild Neurocognitive Disorders

BACKGROUND

Processing speed has been highlighted as a diagnostic item for neurocognitive disorders (NCD) in DSM-5. The utility of information processing speed (IPS) enclosed with multiscale constructs in the diagnosis of NCD warrants exploration.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to investigate the IPS with two types of measurements in the patients with NCD due to vascular disease (NCD-vascular) and NCD due to Alzheimer's disease (NCD-AD), and examine the associations between IPS measures and morphometric features.

METHODS

The IPS was evaluated using trail making test (TMT) and flanker test (n = 204). Direct scores, derived scores, and reaction time (RT) were used as IPS measures. Further, surface-based morphometry cortical volume was calculated in a subsample (n = 44) with structural MRI data.

RESULTS

All IPS measures showed a significant value to differentiate NCD patients from healthy subjects. Only mean RT could distinguish NCD-AD from NCD-vascular groups. TMT-B score and difference score were correlated with gray matter volume (GMV) of inferior frontal gyrus, precuneus and superior temporal cortex. Mean RT was associated with the GMV of post-central gyrus (r = -0.327, p = 0.035), and executive speed was associated with inferior frontal cortex (r = -0.475, p = 0.001), cingulate gyrus (r = -0.497, p = 0.001), and superior temporal gyrus (r = -0.36, p = 0.019).

CONCLUSION

The cognitive and morphometric correlates of IPS measures indicate that complex IPS might be decomposed into the domain-specific components with corresponding neural underpinnings. Our findings may also provide essential insights into the diagnostic item of NCD.

Steps to Health in Cognitive Aging: Effects of Physical Activity on Spatial Attention and Executive Control in the Elderly

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether physical activity (PA) habits may positively impact performance of the orienting and executive control networks in community-dwelling aging individuals and diabetics, who are at risk of cognitive dysfunction. To this aim, we tested cross-sectionally whether age, ranging from late middle-age to old adulthood, and PA level independently or interactively predict different facets of the attentional performance. Hundred and thirty female and male individuals and 22 adults with type 2 diabetes aged 55–84 years were recruited and their daily PA (steps) was objectively measured by means of armband monitors. Participants performed a multifunctional attentional go/no-go reaction time (RT) task in which spatial attention was cued by means of informative direct cues of different sizes followed by compound stimuli with local and global target features. The performance efficiency of the orienting networks was estimated by computing RT differences between validly and invalidly cued trials, that of the executive control networks by computing local switch costs that are RT differences between switch and non-switch trials in mixed blocks of global and local target trials. In regression analyses performed on the data of non-diabetic elderlies, overall RTs and orienting effects resulted jointly predicted by age and steps. Age predicted overall RTs in low-active individuals, but orienting effects and response errors in high-active individuals. Switch costs were predicted by age only, with larger costs at older age. In the analysis conducted with the 22 diabetics and 22 matched non-diabetic elderlies, diabetic status and daily steps predicted longer and shorter RTs, respectively. Results suggest that high PA levels exert beneficial, but differentiated effects on processing speed and attentional networks performance in aging individuals that partially counteract the detrimental effects of advancing age and diabetic status. In conclusion, adequate levels of overall PA may positively impinge on brain efficiency and attentional control and should be therefore promoted by actions that support lifelong PA participation and impact the built environment to render it more conducive to PA.

Increased risk for age-related impairment in visual attention associated with mild traumatic brain injury: Evidence from saccadic response times

It was hypothesized that risk for age-related impairment in attention would be greater among those with remote history of mild TBI than individuals without history of head injury. Twenty-seven adults with remote history of mild TBI and a well-matched comparison group of 54 uninjured controls completed a computerized test of visual attention while saccadic and manual response times were recorded. Within the mild TBI group only, older age was associated with slower saccadic responses and poorer saccadic inhibition. Saccadic slowing was mitigated in situations where the timing and location of attention targets was fully predictable. Mild TBI was not associated with age-related increases in risk for neuropsychological impairment or neurobehavioral symptoms. These results provide preliminary evidence that risk for age-related impairment in visual attention may be higher among those with a history of mild TBI. Saccadic measures may provide enhanced sensitivity to this subtle form of cognitive impairment.

Visual-cognitive tools used to determine fitness-to-drive may reflect normal aging

BACKGROUND

Scores on many visual-cognitive tools are proposed as indicators of fitness-to-drive. A purported feature of some tools and one believed to be important is that they are 'age-independent'. Specifically, scores are not correlated with age and poor scores represent a pathological process rather than normal aging. Yet, we know that several cognitive abilities are associated with age. One potential reason for the apparent age-independence of some tools is that focusing on older drivers leads to 'range restriction', a statistical issue that reduces the magnitude of correlations when values for one variable are restricted to a smaller range than naturally occurs. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether age is correlated with scores on visual-cognitive tests when we examine the full age range.

METHODS

We recruited 114 drivers aged 18 to 89 years (mean: 42.30 ± 26.50 years). Participants completed several visual-cognitive tools often used to examine fitness-to-drive (Trail Making Tests A and B, Attention Network Test and 'useful field of view').

RESULTS

Correlations between age and test scores for drivers 65 years and older only ranged from 0.03 to 0.48. With the whole age range, correlations ranged from 0.56 to 0.84. We also compared ordinary Pearson correlations among visual-cognitive tests scores to the corresponding partial correlations after removing the effect of age. Whereas ordinary Pearson correlations ranged from 0.40 to 0.69, partial correlations ranged from 0.01 to 0.30.

CONCLUSION

Test scores may reflect age-associated normal biological changes. These results have implications for predicting fitness-to-drive among older drivers and suggest caution in using these scores.

The Age-Dependent Relationship between Blood Pressure and Cognitive Impairment: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Rural Area of Xi'an, China

Background

Hypertension is a modifiable risk factor for cognitive impairment, although the relationship between hypertension and cognitive impairment is not fully understood. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of age on the relationship between blood pressure and cognitive impairment.

Methods

Blood pressure and global cognitive function information was collected from 1799 participants (age 40–85) who lived in a village in the suburbs of Xi'an, China, during in-person interviews. Cognitive impairment was defined as a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score lower than the cutoff value. The effect of age on the relationship between blood pressure parameters [systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial blood pressure (MABP), and high blood pressure (HBP, SBP≥140 mm Hg and/or DBP≥90 mm Hg)] and cognitive impairment was analyzed by logistic regression models using interaction and stratified analysis. Blood pressure and age were regarded as both continuous and categorical data.

Results

A total of 231 participants were diagnosed as having cognitive impairment based on our criteria. Interaction analysis for the total population showed that SBP (when regarded as continuous data) was positively correlated with cognitive impairment (OR = 1.130 [95% CI, 1.028–1.242] per 10mmHg, P = 0.011); however, the age by SBP interaction term was negatively correlated with cognitive impairment (OR = 0.989 [95% CI, 0.982–0.997] per 10mmHg×year, P = 0.006), indicating that the relationship between SBP and cognitive impairment was age-dependent (OR = 1.130×0.989^(age-55.5) per 10mmHg,40 ≤age≤85). When the blood pressure and age were considered as binary data, the results were similar to those obtained when they were considered as continuous variables. Stratified multivariate analysis revealed that the relationship between SBP (when regarded as continuous data) and cognitive impairment was positive for patients aged 40–49 years (OR = 1.349 [95% CI: 1.039–1.753] per 10mmHg, P = 0.025) and 50–59 years (OR = 1.185 [95% CI: 1.028–1.366] per 10mmHg, P = 0.019), whereas it tended to be negative for patients aged 60–69 years (OR = 0.878 [95% CI: 0.729–1.058] per 10mmHg, P = 0.171) and ≥70 years (OR = 0.927 [95% CI: 0.772–1.113] per 10mmHg, P = 0.416). Results similar to those for SBP were obtained for DBP, MABP and HBP as well. Subsequently, SBP, DBP and MABP were transformed into categorical data (SBP<140mmHg, 140mmHg≤SBP<160mmHg, and SBP≥160mmHg; DBP<90mmHg, 90mmHg≤DBP<100mmHg, and DBP≥100mmHg; MABP<100mmHg, 100mmHg≤MABP<110mmHg, and MABP≥110mmHg), and the stratified multivariate analysis was repeated. This analysis showed that the age-dependent association continued to exist and was especially prominent in the SBP≥160 mmHg, DBP≥90 mmHg and MABP≥110 mmHg groups.

Conclusions

Elevated blood pressure is positively correlated with cognitive impairment in the middle-aged, but this positive association declines with increasing age. These results indicated that specific blood pressure management strategies for various age groups may be crucial for maintaining cognitive vitality.

The protective role of long-term meditation on the decline of the executive component of attention in aging: a preliminary cross-sectional study

Life expectancy is constantly increasing. However, a longer life not always corresponds to a healthier life. Indeed, even normal aging is associated with a decline in different cognitive functions. It has been proposed that a central mechanism that could contribute to this widespread cognitive decline is an ineffective inhibitory attentional control. Meditation, to the other hand, has been associated, in young adults, to enhancement of several attentional processes. Nevertheless, attention is not a unitary construct. An influent model proposed the distinction of three subsystems: the alerting (the ability to reach and maintain a vigilance state), the orienting (the capacity of focusing attention on a subset of stimuli), and the conflict resolution or executive component (the ability to resolve conflict or allocate limited resources between competing stimuli). Here, we investigated, employing the Attentional Network Task (ANT), the specific impact of age on these three subcomponents, and the protective role of long-term meditation testing a group of older adults naïve to meditation, a group of age-matched adults with long-term practice of meditation, and a group of young adults with no previous meditation experience. We reported a specific decline of the efficiency of the executive component in elderly that was not observed in age-matched meditators. Our results are encouraging for the investigation of the potential beneficial impact of meditation on other cognitive processes that decline in aging such as memory. Moreover, they could inform geriatric healthcare prevention and intervention strategies, proposing a new approach for cognitive remediation in elderly populations.

Disturbance of attention network functions in Chinese healthy older adults: an intra-individual perspective

BACKGROUND

Intra-individual variability (IIV) and the change of attentional functions have been reported to be susceptible to both healthy ageing and pathological ageing. The current study aimed to evaluate the IIV of attention and the age-related effect on alerting, orienting, and executive control in cognitively healthy older adults.

METHOD

We evaluated 145 Chinese older adults (age range of 65-80 years, mean age of 72.41 years) with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and the Attention network test (ANT). A two-step strategy of analytical methods was used: Firstly, the IIV of older adults was evaluated by the intraindividual coefficient of variation of reaction time (ICV-RT). The correlation between ICV-RT and age was used to evaluate the necessity of subgrouping. Further, the comparisons of ANT performance among three age groups were performed with processing speed adjusted.

RESULTS

Person's correlation revealed significant positive correlations between age and IIV (r = 0.185, p = 0.032), age and executive control (r = 0.253, p = 0.003). Furthermore, one-way ANOVA comparisons among three age groups revealed a significant age-related disturbance on executive control (F = 4.55, p = 0.01), in which oldest group (group with age >75 years) showed less efficient executive control than young-old (group with age 65-70 years) (Conventional score, p = 0.012; Ratio score, p = 0.020).

CONCLUSION

Advancing age has an effect on both IIV and executive attention in cognitively healthy older adults, suggesting that the disturbance of executive attention is a sensitive indicator to reflect healthy ageing. Its significance to predict further deterioration should be carefully evaluated with prospective studies.

Age differences in the Attention Network Test: Evidence from behavior and event-related potentials

The Attention Network Test (ANT) is widely used to capture group and individual differences in selective attention. Prior behavioral studies with younger and older adults have yielded mixed findings with respect to age differences in three putative attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control). To overcome the limitations of behavioral data, the current study combined behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Twenty-four healthy younger adults (aged 18-29years) and 24 healthy older adults (aged 60-76years) completed the ANT while EEG data were recorded. Behaviorally, older adults showed reduced alerting, but did not differ from younger adults in orienting or executive control. Electrophysiological components related to alerting and orienting (P1, N1, and CNV) were similar in both age groups, whereas components related to executive control (N2 and P3) showed age-related differences. Together these results suggest that comparisons of network effects between age groups using behavioral data alone may not offer a complete picture of age differences in selective attention, especially for alerting and executive control networks.

Antihypertensive Therapies and Cognitive Function: a Review

Increasing life expectancy has made old age-related health problems like dementia and cognitive decline more prevalent, and these are rapidly becoming important causes of disability and poor quality of life, causing significant add-ons to health-care costs worldwide. Hypertension is the most important modifiable vascular risk factor for the development and progression of both cognitive decline and dementia. In many observational and randomized studies, antihypertensive therapies have been shown to be beneficial in slowing cognitive decline. However, due to observed discrepancies by these studies, there is a lack of consensus on the best antihypertensive strategy for the prevention or slowing of cognitive decline. It is also not clear whether the beneficial effect of antihypertensive therapy is due to the use of a specific class of agents or combination therapy. Thus, we present a comprehensive review of overall antihypertensive therapies and cognition and of the individual antihypertensive therapy classes with their specific protective mechanisms and available clinical evidence behind their effect on cognitive function.

Age Differences in Reaction Times and a Neurophysiological Marker of Cholinergic Activity

RÉSUMÉ La détérioration du système cholinergique lors du vieillissement normal semble contribuer au déclin de l'attention avec l'âge. Nous avons examiné l'effet potentiel de l'âge sur la performance au « Attention Network Test » (ANT) ainsi que sur la variabilité intra-individuelle dans la vitesse des réponses à une tâche go/no-go et à une tâche de temps de réaction (TR) à choix multiples chez un groupe de jeunes adultes et de personnes âgées en santé. Nous avons ensuite examiné si un marqueur neurophysiologique de l'activité cholinergique dérivé de la stimulation magnétique transcrânienne (i.e., inhibition afférente à courte latence; IACL) était associé à la performance. Les personnes âgées montraient un ralentissement au ANT ainsi qu'une plus grande variabilité intra-individuelle que les jeunes adultes à la tâche de TR à choix multiples, mais il n'y avait pas de différence liée à l'âge dans les scores reflétant les réseaux attentionnels du ANT (vigilance, orientation aux stimuli et contrôle exécutif). Les niveaux de IACL étaient diminués chez les personnes âgées, mais ils n'étaient pas associés à la performance. Il est possible que des relations entre le marqueur de l'activité cholinergique et l'attention émergent seulement en cas de déficits de neurotransmission sévères. D'autres mécanismes corticaux pourraient aussi être plus fortement associés aux fonctions liées à l'attention.

Effects of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Executive Function in Older Women

Acute aerobic exercise may increase cognitive processing speed among tasks demanding a substantial degree of executive function. Few studies have investigated executive function after acute exercise in older adults across various exercise intensities. Healthy females 60-75 years of age (n = 11) who were not on medications completed 20-min exercise sessions at a moderate (50%VO2max) exercise intensity and a vigorous (75%VO2max) exercise intensity. Modified flanker tasks (reaction times) and d2 tests of sustained and selective attention (components of executive function) were completed before, immediately after, and 30-min post-exercise. Results indicated that older adult females had improved scores on the modified flanker task reaction times (RTT, RTI, RTC) and d2 tests immediately after both moderate and vigorous intensity aerobic exercise. Some of these effects were maintained 30 min post-exercise. These findings suggest that an acute bout of exercise, regardless of intensity, can improve performance on tests of executive function in older women. Key pointsFew studies have investigated the effects of the intensity of exercise on executive function in older womenExecutive function improved after 20-min of aerobic exercise regardless of exercise intensity in older womenFindings from the study were not confounded by prescribed medications; all participants who were older women were not taking any medications.

Plasticity Induced by Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation in Bilateral Motor Cortices Is Not Altered in Older Adults

Numerous studies have reported that plasticity induced in the motor cortex by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is attenuated in older adults. Those investigations, however, have focused solely on the stimulated hemisphere. Compared to young adults, older adults exhibit more widespread activity across bilateral motor cortices during the performance of unilateral motor tasks, suggesting that the manifestation of plasticity might also be altered. To address this question, twenty young (<35 years old) and older adults (>65 years) underwent intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) whilst attending to the hand targeted by the plasticity-inducing procedure. The amplitude of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited by single pulse TMS was used to quantify cortical excitability before and after iTBS. Individual responses to iTBS were highly variable, with half the participants showing an unexpected decrease in cortical excitability. Contrary to predictions, however, there were no age-related differences in the magnitude or manifestation of plasticity across bilateral motor cortices. The findings suggest that advancing age does not influence the capacity for, or manifestation of, plasticity induced by iTBS.