Division of Optical Brain Engineering, Department of Neurological Surgery, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo 173-8610, Japan.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2010;662:473-8. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4419-1241-1_68.
We evaluated the effect of aging on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity and heart rate during the task. Employing near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), we measured hemoglobin concentration changes in the bilateral PFC during a mental arithmetic task in young and older females. We selected the subjects who exhibited an increase in oxyhemoglobin with a decrease in deoxyhemoglobin during the task. We observed that right PFC activity predominantly modulates sympathetic effects during the task in both groups. However, the changes of oxyhemoglobin and heart rate during the task in older subjects were significantly smaller than those in young subjects. These results indicate that aging affects evoked cerebral blood oxygenation (CBO) response patterns of the PFC during a mental stress task. Aging did not affect the laterality of PFC activity in modulation of ANS function in the subjects who exhibited increases of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin associated with a decrease of deoxyhemoglobin during the task. However, aging reduced the heart rate increase during the task.
我们评估了年龄对前额叶皮层（PFC）活动和心率的影响。使用近红外光谱（NIRS），我们测量了年轻和老年女性在心理算术任务期间双侧 PFC 中的血红蛋白浓度变化。我们选择了在任务期间表现出氧合血红蛋白增加和脱氧血红蛋白减少的受试者。我们观察到，右侧 PFC 活动主要调节两组任务中的交感神经效应。然而，与年轻受试者相比，老年受试者在任务期间的氧合血红蛋白和心率变化明显较小。这些结果表明，年龄会影响心理压力任务期间 PFC 的诱发脑血氧（CBO）反应模式。在任务期间表现出与脱氧血红蛋白减少相关的氧合血红蛋白和脱氧血红蛋白增加的受试者中，年龄并不影响 PFC 活动的偏侧性对自主神经系统功能的调节。然而，年龄会降低任务期间的心率增加。
