Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies), Trieste, Italy.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2011 Apr;23(4):801-15. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2010.21490. Epub 2010 Mar 29.
This study used fMRI to investigate the neural effects of increasing cognitive demands in normal aging and their role for performance. Simple and complex go/no-go tasks were used with two versus eight colored letters as go stimuli, respectively. In both tasks, no-go stimuli could produce high conflict (same letter, different color) or low conflict (colored numbers) with go stimuli. Multivariate partial least square analysis of fMRI data showed that older adults overengaged a cohesive pattern of fronto-parietal regions with no-go stimuli under the specific combination of factors which progressively amplified task demands: high conflict no-go trials in the first phase of the complex task. This early neural overrecruitment was positively correlated with a lower error rate in the older group. Thus, the present data suggest that age-related extra-recruitment of neural resources can be beneficial for performance under taxing task conditions, such as when novel, weak, and complex rules have to be acquired.
本研究使用 fMRI 探讨了正常衰老过程中认知需求增加的神经效应及其对表现的作用。分别使用了简单和复杂的 Go/No-Go 任务，其中 Go 刺激物分别为两个和八个彩色字母。在这两个任务中，No-Go 刺激物可以与 Go 刺激物产生高冲突（相同字母，不同颜色）或低冲突（彩色数字）。对 fMRI 数据的多元偏最小二乘分析表明，随着复杂任务第一阶段高冲突 No-Go 试验等因素逐渐放大任务需求，老年组过度参与了额顶区域的凝聚模式：具有特定组合。这种早期的神经过度招募与老年组较低的错误率呈正相关。因此，目前的数据表明，在高要求的任务条件下，与年龄相关的神经资源的额外招募可能对表现有益，例如在需要获得新的、弱的和复杂的规则时。
