The Laboratory for Investigative Neurophysiology (The LINE), Department of Radiology, and Neuropsychology and Neurorehabilitation Service, University Hospital Center and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Department of Ophthalmology, Fondation Asile des Aveugles and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jun 11;8(1):8901. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-27288-2.
Multisensory information typically confers neural and behavioural advantages over unisensory information. We used a simple audio-visual detection task to compare healthy young (HY), healthy older (HO) and mild-cognitive impairment (MCI) individuals. Neuropsychological tests assessed individuals' learning and memory impairments. First, we provide much-needed clarification regarding the presence of enhanced multisensory benefits in both healthily and abnormally aging individuals. The pattern of sensory dominance shifted with healthy and abnormal aging to favour a propensity of auditory-dominant behaviour (i.e., detecting sounds faster than flashes). Notably, multisensory benefits were larger only in healthy older than younger individuals who were also visually-dominant. Second, we demonstrate that the multisensory detection task offers benefits as a time- and resource-economic MCI screening tool. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated that MCI diagnosis could be reliably achieved based on the combination of indices of multisensory integration together with indices of sensory dominance. Our findings showcase the importance of sensory profiles in determining multisensory benefits in healthy and abnormal aging. Crucially, our findings open an exciting possibility for multisensory detection tasks to be used as a cost-effective screening tool. These findings clarify relationships between multisensory and memory functions in aging, while offering new avenues for improved dementia diagnostics.
多感官信息通常比单感官信息具有神经和行为优势。我们使用简单的视听检测任务比较了健康的年轻人（HY）、健康的老年人（HO）和轻度认知障碍（MCI）个体。神经心理学测试评估了个体的学习和记忆障碍。首先，我们就健康和异常衰老个体中增强的多感官优势的存在提供了急需的澄清。感官优势的模式随着健康和异常衰老而变化，有利于听觉主导行为的倾向（即比闪光更快地检测到声音）。值得注意的是，只有在健康的老年人中，多感官优势才大于年轻个体，而年轻个体则是视觉主导。其次，我们证明多感官检测任务作为一种时间和资源经济的 MCI 筛查工具具有优势。接收者操作特征（ROC）分析表明，基于多感官整合指数与感官优势指数的结合，可以可靠地实现 MCI 诊断。我们的发现展示了在确定健康和异常衰老中的多感官优势时感官特征的重要性。至关重要的是，我们的发现为多感官检测任务作为一种具有成本效益的筛查工具的使用开辟了令人兴奋的可能性。这些发现阐明了衰老过程中多感官和记忆功能之间的关系，同时为改善痴呆症诊断提供了新途径。
