Langner Robert, Cieslik Edna C, Behrwind Simone D, Roski Christian, Caspers Svenja, Amunts Katrin, Eickhoff Simon B
Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany,
Brain Struct Funct. 2015;220(3):1739-57. doi: 10.1007/s00429-014-0758-0. Epub 2014 Apr 10.
Healthy aging has been found associated with less efficient response conflict solution, but the cognitive and neural mechanisms have remained elusive. In a two-experiment study, we first examined the behavioural consequences of this putative age-related decline for conflicts induced by spatial stimulus-response incompatibility. We then used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from a large, independent sample of adults (n = 399; 18-85 years) to investigate age differences in functional connectivity between the nodes of a network previously found associated with incompatibility-induced response conflicts in the very same paradigm. As expected, overcoming interference from conflicting response tendencies took longer in older adults, even after accounting for potential mediator variables (general response speed and accuracy, motor speed, visuomotor coordination ability, and cognitive flexibility). Experiment 2 revealed selective age-related decreases in functional connectivity between bilateral anterior insula, pre-supplementary motor area, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Importantly, these age effects persisted after controlling for regional grey-matter atrophy assessed by voxel-based morphometry. Meta-analytic functional profiling using the BrainMap database showed these age-sensitive nodes to be more strongly linked to highly abstract cognition, as compared with the remaining network nodes, which were more strongly linked to action-related processing. These findings indicate changes in interregional coupling with age among task-relevant network nodes that are not specifically associated with conflict resolution per se. Rather, our behavioural and neural data jointly suggest that healthy aging is associated with difficulties in properly activating non-dominant but relevant task schemata necessary to exert efficient cognitive control over action.
研究发现，健康衰老与反应冲突解决效率降低有关，但认知和神经机制仍不清楚。在一项包含两个实验的研究中，我们首先研究了这种假定的与年龄相关的衰退对空间刺激-反应不兼容所引发冲突的行为后果。然后，我们使用来自一个大型独立成人样本（n = 399；18 - 85岁）的静息态功能磁共振成像数据，来研究在同一范式中，先前发现与不兼容诱导的反应冲突相关的网络节点之间功能连接的年龄差异。正如预期的那样，即使在考虑了潜在的中介变量（一般反应速度和准确性、运动速度、视觉运动协调能力和认知灵活性）之后，老年人克服冲突反应倾向的干扰所需时间更长。实验2揭示了双侧前脑岛、前辅助运动区和右侧背外侧前额叶皮层之间的功能连接存在与年龄相关的选择性降低。重要的是，在通过基于体素的形态学方法评估的区域灰质萎缩得到控制后，这些年龄效应仍然存在。使用BrainMap数据库进行的元分析功能剖析表明，与其余网络节点相比，这些对年龄敏感的节点与高度抽象认知的联系更为紧密，而其余网络节点与动作相关处理的联系更为紧密。这些发现表明，与任务相关的网络节点之间的区域间耦合随年龄发生变化，而这些变化并非与冲突解决本身有特定关联。相反，我们的行为和神经数据共同表明，健康衰老与难以正确激活对动作进行有效认知控制所需的非主导但相关的任务图式有关。
