School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignal Analysis, University of Münster, D-48149 Münster, Germany.
Cereb Cortex. 2021 Jan 1;31(1):123-137. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa213.
The constant increase in the graying population is the result of a great expansion of life expectancy. A smaller expansion of healthy cognitive and brain functioning diminishes the gains achieved by longevity. Music training, as a special case of multisensory learning, may induce restorative neuroplasticity in older ages. The current study aimed to explore aging effects on the cortical network supporting multisensory cognition and to define aging effects on the network's neuroplastic attributes. A computer-based music reading protocol was developed and evaluated via electroencephalography measurements pre- and post-training on young and older adults. Results revealed that multisensory integration is performed via diverse strategies in the two groups: Older adults employ higher-order supramodal areas to a greater extent than lower level perceptual regions, in contrast to younger adults, indicating an age-related shift in the weight of each processing strategy. Restorative neuroplasticity was revealed in the left inferior frontal gyrus and right medial temporal gyrus, as a result of the training, while task-related reorganization of cortical connectivity was obstructed in the group of older adults, probably due to systemic maturation mechanisms. On the contrary, younger adults significantly increased functional connectivity among the regions supporting multisensory integration.
人口老龄化的不断增加是预期寿命大幅延长的结果。健康认知和大脑功能的稍小扩展减少了长寿带来的收益。音乐训练作为多感官学习的特殊情况，可能会在老年时期诱导恢复性神经可塑性。本研究旨在探索老龄化对支持多感官认知的皮质网络的影响，并定义老龄化对网络的神经可塑性属性的影响。开发了一种基于计算机的音乐阅读协议，并通过脑电图测量在年轻和老年成年人进行训练前后进行了评估。结果表明，多感官整合是通过两组不同的策略来实现的：老年人比年轻成年人更广泛地利用更高阶的超模态区域，而不是较低水平的感知区域，这表明每种处理策略的权重随年龄而变化。由于训练，在左额下回和右内侧颞叶中出现了恢复性神经可塑性，而在老年组中皮质连接的任务相关重组受到阻碍，这可能是由于系统性成熟机制所致。相反，年轻成年人显著增加了支持多感官整合的区域之间的功能连接。
