Patterns of frontoparietal activation as a marker for unsuccessful visuospatial processing in healthy aging

Autor: Kathleen E. Hazlett, Linas A. Bieliauskas, Sharee N. Light, Elisabeth A. Wilde, Scott A. Langenecker, Lauren L. Drag, Brett A. Steinberg, Robert C. Welsh
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Adult
Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Aging
Cognitive Neuroscience
media_common.quotation_subject
Posterior parietal cortex
Prefrontal Cortex
Audiology
Neuropsychological Tests
050105 experimental psychology
Temporal lobe
03 medical and health sciences
Behavioral Neuroscience
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Young Adult
0302 clinical medicine
Supramarginal gyrus
Perception
Parietal Lobe
medicine
Reaction Time
Humans
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Radiology
Nuclear Medicine and imaging
Attention
Prefrontal cortex
media_common
Aged
Aged
80 and over
Brain Mapping
05 social sciences
Neuropsychology
Parietal lobe
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Temporal Lobe
Oxygen
Psychiatry and Mental health
Neurology
Cerebrovascular Circulation
Space Perception
Neurology (clinical)
medicine.symptom
Psychology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Simultanagnosia
Cognitive psychology
Zdroj: Brain imaging and behavior. 10(3)
ISSN: 1931-7565
Popis: Visuospatial abilities are sensitive to age-related decline, although the neural basis for this decline (and its everyday behavioral correlates) is as yet poorly understood. fMRI was employed to examine age-related differences in patterns of functional activation that underlie changes in visuospatial processing. All participants completed a brief neuropsychological battery and also a figure ground task (FGT) assessing visuospatial processing while fMRI was recorded. Participants included 16 healthy older adults (OA; aged 69–82 years) and 16 healthy younger adults (YA; aged 20–35 years). We examined age-related differences in behavioral performance on the FGT in relation to patterns of fMRI activation. OA demonstrated reduced performance on the FGT task and showed increased activation of supramarginal parietal cortex as well as increased activation of frontal and temporal regions compared to their younger counterparts. Performance on the FGT related to increased supramarginal gyrus activity and increased medial prefrontal activity in OAs, but not YAs. Our results are consistent with an anterior-posterior compensation model. Successful FGT performance requires the perception and integration of multiple stimuli and thus it is plausible that healthy aging may be accompanied by changes in visuospatial processing that mimic a subtle form of dorsal simultanagnosia. Overall, decreased visuospatial processing in OA relates to an altered frontoparietal neurobiological signature that may contribute to the general phenomenon of increasingly fragmented execution of behavior associated with normal aging.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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