Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
School of Psychology, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Psychophysiology. 2022 Nov;59(11):e14113. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14113. Epub 2022 Jun 25.
The ratio of fronto-central theta (4-7 Hz) to beta oscillations (13-30 Hz), known as the theta-beta ratio, is negatively correlated with attentional control, reinforcement learning, executive function, and age. Although theta-beta ratios have been found to decrease with age in adolescents and young adults, theta has been found to increase with age in older adults. Moreover, age-related decrease in individual alpha peak frequency and flattening of the 1/f aperiodic component may artifactually inflate the association between theta-beta ratio and age. These factors lead to an incomplete understanding of how theta-beta ratio varies across the lifespan and the extent to which variation is due to a conflation of aperiodic and periodic activity. We conducted a partially preregistered analysis examining the cross-sectional associations between age and resting canonical fronto-central theta-beta ratio, individual alpha peak frequency, and aperiodic component (n = 268; age 36-84, M = 55.8, SD = 11.0). Age was negatively associated with theta-beta ratios, individual peak alpha frequencies, and the aperiodic exponent. The correlation between theta-beta ratios and age remained after controlling for individual peak alpha frequencies, but was nonsignificant when controlling for the aperiodic exponent. Aperiodic exponent fully mediated the relationship between theta-beta ratio and age, although beta remained significantly associated with age after controlling for theta, individual peak alpha, and aperiodic exponent. Results replicate previous observations and show age-related decreases in theta-beta ratios are not due to age-related decrease in individual peak alpha frequencies but primarily explained by flattening of the aperiodic component with age.
额中央θ（4-7 Hz）与β节律（13-30 Hz）的比值，即θ/β比值，与注意力控制、强化学习、执行功能和年龄呈负相关。尽管θ/β比值在青少年和年轻人中随年龄增长而降低，但在老年人中，θ随年龄增长而增加。此外，个体α波峰值频率随年龄相关的降低和 1/f 无规则成分的变平可能会人为地夸大θ/β比值与年龄之间的关联。这些因素导致我们对θ/β比值在整个生命周期中的变化方式以及变化在多大程度上归因于无规则和规则活动的混淆缺乏完整的理解。我们进行了一项部分预先注册的分析，考察了年龄与静息标准额中央θ/β比值、个体α波峰值频率和无规则成分之间的横断面关联（n=268；年龄 36-84，M=55.8，SD=11.0）。年龄与θ/β比值、个体α波峰值频率和无规则指数呈负相关。控制个体α波峰值频率后，θ/β比值与年龄的相关性仍然存在，但控制无规则指数后，相关性无统计学意义。无规则指数完全介导了θ/β比值与年龄之间的关系，但在控制θ、个体α波峰值和无规则指数后，β仍然与年龄显著相关。研究结果复制了先前的观察结果，并表明θ/β比值随年龄的降低不是由于个体α波峰值频率随年龄的降低，而是主要由无规则成分随年龄的变平引起的。
