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Leite J, Gonçalves ÓF, Carvalho S. Speed of Processing (SoP) Training Plus α-tACS in People With Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Double Blind, Parallel, Placebo Controlled Trial Study Protocol. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:880510. [PMID: 35928993 PMCID: PMC9344129 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.880510] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2022] [Accepted: 06/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Several cognitive training programs, alone or in combination with non-invasive brain stimulation have been tested in order to ameliorate age-related cognitive impairments, such as the ones found in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). However, the effects of Cognitive Training (CT)—combined or not—with several forms of non-invasive brain stimulation have been modest at most. We aim to assess if Speed of Processing (SoP) training combined with alpha transcranial alternating current stimulation (α-tACS) is able to increase speed of processing as assessed by the Useful Field of View (UFOV), when comparing to SoP training or active α-tACS alone. Moreover, we want to assess if those changes in speed of processing transfer to other cognitive domains, such as memory, language and executive functioning by using the NIH EXAMINER. We also want to test the mechanisms underlying these interventions, namely brain connectivity and coherence as assessed by electroencephalography (EEG). To that purpose, our proposal is to enroll 327 elders diagnosed with MCI in a double-blinded, parallel randomized clinical trial assessing the effects of combining SoP with alpha endogenous tACS (either active or sham) in people with MCI. Participants will perform an intervention that will last for 15 sessions. For the first 3 weeks, participants will receive nine sessions of the intervention, and then will receive two sessions per week (i.e., booster) for the following 3 weeks. They will then be assessed at 1, 3, and 6 months after the intervention has ended. This will allow us to detect the immediate, and long-term effects of the interventions, as well as to probe the mechanisms underlying its effects.Clinical Trial Registration:Clinicaltrials.gov, Identifier: NCT05198726.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jorge Leite
- Portucalense Institute for Human Development—INPP, Portucalense University, Porto, Portugal
- Portuguese Network for the Psychological Neuroscience, Portugal
- *Correspondence: Jorge Leite
| | - Óscar F. Gonçalves
- Portuguese Network for the Psychological Neuroscience, Portugal
- Proaction Laboratory, CINEICC, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Sandra Carvalho
- Portuguese Network for the Psychological Neuroscience, Portugal
- Department of Education and Psychology and William James Center for Research, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro, Portugal
- The Psychology Research Centre (CIPsi), School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
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Markiewicz R, Segaert K, Mazaheri A. How the healthy ageing brain supports semantic binding during language comprehension. Eur J Neurosci 2021; 54:7899-7917. [PMID: 34779069 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15525] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2021] [Revised: 11/01/2021] [Accepted: 11/05/2021] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
Semantic binding refers to constructing complex meaning based on elementary building blocks. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated the age-related changes in modulations of oscillatory brain activity supporting lexical retrieval and semantic binding. Young and older adult participants were visually presented two-word phrases, which for the first word revealed a lexical retrieval signature (e.g., swift vs. swrfeq) and for the second word revealed a semantic binding signature (e.g., horse in a semantic binding "swift horse" vs. no binding "swrfeq horse" context). The oscillatory brain activity associated with lexical retrieval as well as semantic binding significantly differed between healthy older and young adults. Specifically for lexical retrieval, we found that different age groups exhibited opposite patterns of theta and alpha modulation, which as a combined picture suggest that lexical retrieval is associated with different and delayed signatures in older compared with young adults. For semantic binding, in young adults, we found a signature in the low-beta range centred around the target word onset (i.e., a smaller low-beta increase for binding relative to no binding), whereas in healthy older adults, we found an opposite binding signature about ~500 ms later in the low- and high-beta range (i.e., a smaller low- and high-beta decrease for binding relative to no binding). The novel finding of a different and delayed oscillatory signature for semantic binding in healthy older adults reflects that the integration of word meaning into the semantic context takes longer and relies on different mechanisms in healthy older compared with young adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roksana Markiewicz
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.,Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Katrien Segaert
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.,Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.,Centre for Developmental Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Ali Mazaheri
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.,Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
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Lopukhina A, Laurinavichyute A, Malyutina S, Ryazanskaya G, Savinova E, Simdianova A, Antonova A, Korkina I. Reliance on semantic and structural heuristics in sentence comprehension across the lifespan. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2021; 75:1367-1381. [PMID: 34609228 DOI: 10.1177/17470218211053263] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
People sometimes misinterpret the sentences that they read. One possible reason suggested in the literature is a race between slow bottom-up algorithmic processing and "fast and frugal" top-down heuristic processing that serves to support fast-paced communication but sometimes results in incorrect representations. Heuristic processing can be both semantic, relying on world knowledge and semantic relations between words, and structural, relying on structural economy. Scattered experimental evidence suggests that reliance on heuristics may change from greater reliance on syntactic information in younger people to greater reliance on semantic information in older people. We tested whether the reliance on structural and semantic heuristics changes with age in 137 Russian-speaking adolescents, 135 young adults, and 77 older adults. In a self-paced reading task with comprehension questions, participants read unambiguous high- versus low-attachment sentences that were either semantically plausible or implausible: i.e., the syntactic structure either matched or contradicted the semantic relations between words. We found that the use of top-down heuristics in comprehension increased across the lifespan. Adolescents did not rely on structural heuristics, in contrast to young and older adults. At the same time, older adults relied on semantic heuristics more than young adults and adolescents. Importantly, we found that top-down heuristic processing was faster than bottom-up algorithmic processing: slower reading times were associated with greater accuracy specifically in implausible sentences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anastasiya Lopukhina
- Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language, Moscow, Russia.,HSE University, Moscow, Russia
| | - Anna Laurinavichyute
- Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language, Moscow, Russia.,University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | | | | | | | | | | | - Irina Korkina
- Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language, Moscow, Russia
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Nowak K, Costa-Faidella J, Dacewicz A, Escera C, Szelag E. Altered event-related potentials and theta oscillations index auditory working memory deficits in healthy aging. Neurobiol Aging 2021; 108:1-15. [PMID: 34464912 DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2021.07.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2020] [Revised: 07/25/2021] [Accepted: 07/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Speech comprehension deficits constitute a major issue for an increasingly aged population, as they may lead older individuals to social isolation. Since conversation requires constant monitoring, updating and selecting information, auditory working memory decline, rather than impoverished hearing acuity, has been suggested a core factor. However, in stark contrast to the visual domain, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying auditory working memory deficits in healthy aging remain poorly understood, especially those related to on-the-fly information processing under increasing load. Therefore, we investigated the behavioral costs and electrophysiological differences associated with healthy aging and working memory load during continuous auditory processing. We recorded EEG activity from 27 younger (∼25 years) and 29 older (∼70 years) participants during their performance on an auditory version of the n-back task with speech syllables and 2 workload levels (1-back; 2-back). Behavioral measures were analyzed as indices of function; event-related potentials as proxies for sensory and cognitive processes; and theta oscillatory power as a reflection of memory and central executive function. Our results show age-related differences in auditory information processing within a latency range that is consistent with a series of impaired functions, from sensory gating to cognitive resource allocation during constant information updating, especially under high load.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kamila Nowak
- Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Jordi Costa-Faidella
- Brainlab - Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu, Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
| | - Anna Dacewicz
- Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Carles Escera
- Brainlab - Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu, Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
| | - Elzbieta Szelag
- Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
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Arslan S, Palasis K, Meunier F. Electrophysiological differences in older and younger adults' anaphoric but not cataphoric pronoun processing in the absence of age-related behavioural slowdown. Sci Rep 2020; 10:19234. [PMID: 33159127 PMCID: PMC7648082 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-75550-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2020] [Accepted: 10/12/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
This study reports on an event-related potentials experiment to uncover whether per-millisecond electrophysiological brain activity and analogous behavioural responses are age-sensitive when comprehending anaphoric (referent-first) and cataphoric (pronoun-first) pronouns. Two groups of French speakers were recruited (young n = 18; aged 19-35 and older adults n = 15; aged 57-88) to read sentences where the anaphoric/cataphoric pronouns and their potential referents either matched or mismatched in gender. Our findings indicate that (1) the older adults were not less accurate or slower in their behavioural responses to the mismatches than the younger adults, (2) both anaphoric and cataphoric conditions evoked a central/parietally distributed P600 component with similar timing and amplitude in both the groups. Importantly, mean amplitudes of the P600 effect were modulated by verbal short-term memory span in the older adults but not in the younger adults, (3) nevertheless, the older but not the younger adults displayed an additional anterior negativity emerging on the frontal regions in response to the anaphoric mismatches. These results suggest that pronoun processing is resilient in healthy ageing individuals, but that functional recruitment of additional brain regions, evidenced with the anterior negativity, compensates for increased processing demands in the older adults' anaphora processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Seçkin Arslan
- Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, BCL, 24 Avenue des Diables Bleus, 06357, Nice Cedex 4, France. .,Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. .,Faculty of Arts, Neurolinguistics, Harmoniebuilding, PO Box 716, 9700 AS, Groningen, The Netherlands.
| | - Katerina Palasis
- Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, BCL, 24 Avenue des Diables Bleus, 06357, Nice Cedex 4, France
| | - Fanny Meunier
- Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, BCL, 24 Avenue des Diables Bleus, 06357, Nice Cedex 4, France
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Poulisse C, Wheeldon L, Limachya R, Mazaheri A, Segaert K. The oscillatory mechanisms associated with syntactic binding in healthy ageing. Neuropsychologia 2020; 146:107523. [PMID: 32553723 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107523] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2019] [Revised: 06/02/2020] [Accepted: 06/04/2020] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
Older adults frequently display differential patterns of brain activity compared to young adults in the same task, alongside widespread neuroanatomical changes. Differing functional activity patterns in older adults are commonly interpreted as being compensatory (e.g., Cabeza et al., 2002). We examined the oscillatory activity in the EEG during syntactic binding in young and older adults, as well as the relationship between oscillatory activity and behavioural performance on a syntactic judgement task within the older adults. 19 young and 41 older adults listened to two-word sentences that differentially load onto morpho-syntactic binding: correct syntactic binding (morpho-syntactically correct, e.g., "I dotch"); incorrect syntactic binding (morpho-syntactic agreement violation, e.g., "they dotches") and no syntactic binding (minimizing morpho-syntactic binding, e.g., "dotches spuff"). Behavioural performance, assessed in a syntactic judgement task, was characterized by inter-individual variability especially in older adults, with accuracy ranging from 76 to 100% in young adults and 58-100% in older adults. Compared to young adults, older adults were slower, but not less accurate. Functional neural signatures for syntactic binding were assessed as the difference in oscillatory power between the correct and no syntactic binding condition. In older adults, syntactic binding was associated with a smaller increase in theta (4-7 Hz), alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (15-20 Hz) power in a time window surrounding the second word. There was a significant difference between the older and young adults: in the alpha range, the condition difference seemed to be in the opposite direction for older versus young adults. Our findings thus suggest that the neural signature associated with syntactic binding in older adults is different from young adults. However, we found no evidence of a significant association between behavioural performance and the neural signatures of syntactic binding for older adults, which does not readily support the predictions of compensatory models of language and ageing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charlotte Poulisse
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2SA, United Kingdom.
| | - Linda Wheeldon
- Department of Foreign Languages and Translation, University of Agder, Varemottak Universitetsveien 25 D, 4630, Kristiansand, Norway.
| | - Rupali Limachya
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2SA, United Kingdom.
| | - Ali Mazaheri
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2SA, United Kingdom; Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2SA, United Kingdom.
| | - Katrien Segaert
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2SA, United Kingdom; Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2SA, United Kingdom.
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