Kaufman David A S, Sozda Christopher N, Dotson Vonetta M, Perlstein William M
Department of Psychology, Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO, USA.
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of FloridaGainesville, FL, USA; Malcom Randall Veterans Administration Medical CenterGainesville, FL, USA.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2016 May 9;8:99. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2016.00099. eCollection 2016.
The present study compared young and older adults on behavioral and neural correlates of three attentional networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control). Nineteen young and 16 older neurologically-healthy adults completed the Attention Network Test (ANT) while behavioral data (reaction time and error rates) and 64-channel event-related potentials (ERPs) were acquired. Significant age-related RT differences were observed across all three networks; however, after controlling for generalized slowing, only the alerting network remained significantly reduced in older compared with young adults. ERP data revealed that alerting cues led to enhanced posterior N1 responses for subsequent attentional targets in young adults, but this effect was weakened in older adults. As a result, it appears that older adults did not benefit fully from alerting cues, and their lack of subsequent attentional enhancements may compromise their ability to be as responsive and flexible as their younger counterparts. N1 alerting deficits were associated with several key neuropsychological tests of attention that were difficult for older adults. Orienting and executive attention networks were largely similar between groups. Taken together, older adults demonstrated behavioral and neural alterations in alerting, however, they appeared to compensate for this reduction, as they did not significantly differ in their abilities to use spatially informative cues to aid performance (e.g., orienting), or successfully resolve response conflict (e.g., executive control). These results have important implications for understanding the mechanisms of age-related changes in attentional networks.
本研究比较了年轻人和老年人在三种注意力网络（警觉、定向和执行控制）的行为和神经相关性。19名年轻和16名年长的神经健康成年人完成了注意力网络测试（ANT），同时获取了行为数据（反应时间和错误率）以及64通道事件相关电位（ERP）。在所有三个网络中均观察到了与年龄相关的显著反应时间差异；然而，在控制了普遍的反应减慢后，与年轻人相比，年长成年人中只有警觉网络仍显著降低。ERP数据显示，警觉线索在年轻人中会导致后续注意力目标的后部N1反应增强，但在年长成年人中这种效应减弱。因此，年长成年人似乎没有从警觉线索中充分受益，并且他们缺乏后续的注意力增强可能会损害他们像年轻同龄人一样反应灵敏和灵活的能力。N1警觉缺陷与年长成年人难以完成的几项注意力关键神经心理学测试相关。两组之间的定向和执行注意力网络在很大程度上相似。总体而言，年长成年人在警觉方面表现出行为和神经改变，然而，他们似乎对此进行了补偿，因为他们在利用空间信息线索辅助表现（例如定向）或成功解决反应冲突（例如执行控制）的能力上没有显著差异。这些结果对于理解注意力网络中与年龄相关变化的机制具有重要意义。
