Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School, Germany.
Neuropsychologia. 2018 Oct;119:434-447. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.08.020. Epub 2018 Aug 29.
While aging and stress are both known to affect cognitive functions, little is known on whether and how age modulates stress effects on executive functions and their neural correlates. The current study investigated the effect of acute stress on response inhibition and error processing and their underlying cortical processes in younger and older healthy men, using EEG. Forty-nine participants (30 young) were stressed with the Trier Social Stress Test (16 young, 9 older) or underwent a friendly control procedure (14 young, 10 older) and subsequently performed a Go/No-Go task with two levels of task difficulty while performance (reaction time, error rate), stimulus-locked (N2, P3) and response-locked (Ne, Pe) ERPs were measured. Previous results on age-related cognitive deficits were replicated, with slower responses and reduced and delayed N2 and P3 components, as well as reduced Ne and Pe components in older participants. Independent of age, acute stress improved response inhibition, reflected in higher accuracy for compatible trials and enhanced inhibition-related components (N2, P3 and N2d, P3d of the difference waves No-Go minus Go), and improved error processing, reflected in enhanced error-related components (Ne, Pe and Ne_d, Pe_d of the difference waves error minus correct trial). Our findings indicate that acute stress leads to a reallocation of cognitive resources, strengthening inhibition and error processing in young and older healthy men to a similar degree. Neural generators of the analyzed ERPs are mainly part of the salience network, which is upregulated immediately after stress. This offers an explanation as to why response inhibition, in contrast to other executive functions, improves after acute stress.
虽然衰老和压力都已知会影响认知功能，但对于年龄是否以及如何调节压力对执行功能及其神经相关性的影响知之甚少。本研究使用脑电图研究了急性压力对年轻和老年健康男性的反应抑制和错误处理及其潜在皮质过程的影响。49 名参与者（30 名年轻）接受了特里尔社会压力测试（16 名年轻，9 名年长）或进行了友好的对照程序（14 名年轻，10 名年长），随后在两个任务难度水平下进行了 Go/No-Go 任务，同时测量了性能（反应时间、错误率）、刺激锁定（N2、P3）和反应锁定（Ne、Pe）ERP。年龄相关认知缺陷的先前结果得到了复制，表现为年长参与者的反应较慢，N2 和 P3 成分减少且延迟，以及 Ne 和 Pe 成分减少。与年龄无关，急性压力改善了反应抑制，表现为相容试验的准确性更高，抑制相关成分（N2、P3 和差异波 N2d、P3d 的 No-Go 减去 Go）增强，以及错误处理改善，表现为错误相关成分（Ne、Pe 和差异波 Ne_d、Pe_d 的错误减去正确试验）增强。我们的发现表明，急性压力导致认知资源的重新分配，年轻和年长健康男性的抑制和错误处理都得到了类似程度的增强。分析的 ERP 的神经发生器主要是突显网络的一部分，突显网络在压力后立即上调。这解释了为什么与其他执行功能相比，反应抑制在急性压力后会改善。
