Opitz Laura, Wagner Franziska, Rogenz Jenny, Maas Johanna, Schmidt Alexander, Brodoehl Stefan, Klingner Carsten M
Hans Berger Department of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Biomagnetic Center, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 May 30;14:863580. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.863580. eCollection 2022.
Healthy aging is accompanied by multi-faceted changes. Especially within the brain, healthy aging exerts substantial impetus on core parts of cognitive and motivational networks. Rewards comprise basic needs, such as food, sleep, and social contact. Thus, a functionally intact reward system remains indispensable for elderly people to cope with everyday life and adapt to their changing environment. Research shows that reward system function is better preserved in the elderly than most cognitive functions. To investigate the compensatory mechanisms providing reward system stability in aging, we employed a well-established reward paradigm (Monetary Incentive Delay Task) in groups of young and old participants while undergoing EEG measurement. As a new approach, we applied EEG connectivity analyses to assess cortical reward-related network connectivity. At the behavioral level, our results confirm that the function of the reward system is preserved in old age. The mechanisms identified for maintaining reward system function in old age do not fit into previously described models of cognitive aging. Overall, older adults exhibit lower reward-related connectivity modulation, higher reliance on posterior and right-lateralized brain areas than younger adults, and connectivity modulation in the opposite direction than younger adults, with usually greater connectivity during non-reward compared to reward conditions. We believe that the reward system has unique compensatory mechanisms distinct from other cognitive functions, probably due to its etymologically very early origin. In summary, this study provides important new insights into cortical reward network connectivity in healthy aging.
健康老龄化伴随着多方面的变化。尤其是在大脑内部，健康老龄化对认知和动机网络的核心部分产生了重大推动作用。奖励包括食物、睡眠和社交接触等基本需求。因此，功能完好的奖励系统对于老年人应对日常生活和适应不断变化的环境仍然不可或缺。研究表明，与大多数认知功能相比，奖励系统功能在老年人中得到了更好的保留。为了研究在衰老过程中提供奖励系统稳定性的补偿机制，我们在年轻和老年参与者群体中采用了一种成熟的奖励范式（金钱激励延迟任务），同时进行脑电图测量。作为一种新方法，我们应用脑电图连接性分析来评估与皮质奖励相关的网络连接性。在行为层面，我们的结果证实奖励系统功能在老年时得以保留。在老年时维持奖励系统功能所确定的机制并不符合先前描述的认知衰老模型。总体而言，与年轻人相比，老年人表现出较低的奖励相关连接性调制，对后脑部和右侧大脑区域的依赖更高，并且连接性调制方向与年轻人相反，通常在无奖励状态下比奖励状态下具有更强的连接性。我们认为奖励系统具有与其他认知功能不同的独特补偿机制，这可能归因于其在词源学上非常早的起源。总之，本研究为健康老龄化过程中的皮质奖励网络连接性提供了重要的新见解。
