Beste C, Willemssen R, Saft C, Falkenstein M
Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Biopsychology, Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany.
Neuroscience. 2009 Mar 3;159(1):143-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2008.12.030. Epub 2008 Dec 31.
Recently it has been shown that effects of aging and pathologically induced changes of basal ganglia structures may have quite similar effects on cognitive functions mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex. The question appears, if this pattern may be assignable to other cognitive functions that are mediated via the basal ganglia and medial prefrontal brain areas. Error processing is a component of executive functions that also depends on these areas and especially on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Hence we ask, if error processing functions are differentially modulated by normal aging and basal ganglia diseases. Error processing mechanisms in these groups were investigated using a cognitive event-related potential (ERP), the error negativity. Enrolling an extended sample of young and elderly controls, as well as patients with Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, we show that modulations of error processing differ between aging, different basal ganglia diseases. Despite that the examined basal ganglia disorder groups (Parkinson's and Huntington's disease) differ in their age they show similar modulations in error processing, suggesting that aging effects are overridden by pathogenic effects. The study shows that it may be valuable to compare aging not only to different forms of basal ganglia disorders in order to gain knowledge about age- and disease-related mechanisms and the effects of these on cognitive functions. Diseases of the basal ganglia may impact error processing above and beyond the effects of normal aging. Although many aging, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease studies on error processing functions have already been published, this study ties together several related observations across all of these groups in one experiment.
最近研究表明，衰老以及基底神经节结构的病理诱导变化，可能对内侧前额叶皮质介导的认知功能产生颇为相似的影响。问题在于，这种模式是否也适用于其他经由基底神经节和内侧前额叶脑区介导的认知功能。错误处理是执行功能的一个组成部分，同样依赖于这些区域，尤其是前扣带回皮质（ACC）。因此我们提出疑问，正常衰老和基底神经节疾病是否会对错误处理功能产生不同的调节作用。我们使用一种认知事件相关电位（ERP），即错误负波，来研究这些群体中的错误处理机制。纳入了更多的年轻和老年对照样本，以及帕金森病和亨廷顿病患者，我们发现衰老、不同的基底神经节疾病在错误处理的调节方面存在差异。尽管所研究的基底神经节疾病组（帕金森病和亨廷顿病）年龄不同，但它们在错误处理方面表现出相似的调节，这表明致病效应压倒了衰老效应。该研究表明，将衰老与不同形式的基底神经节疾病进行比较，对于了解与年龄和疾病相关的机制以及这些机制对认知功能的影响可能是有价值的。基底神经节疾病对错误处理的影响可能超过正常衰老的影响。虽然已经发表了许多关于衰老、帕金森病和亨廷顿病错误处理功能的研究，但本研究在一个实验中将所有这些群体的几个相关观察结果联系在了一起。
