Department of Psychiatry, Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, University of California, San Diego.
Psychol Aging. 2022 Nov;37(7):827-842. doi: 10.1037/pag0000710. Epub 2022 Sep 15.
Mental health, cognition, and their underlying neural processes in healthy aging are rarely studied simultaneously. Here, in a sample of healthy younger ( = 62) and older ( = 54) adults, we compared subjective mental health as well as objective global cognition across several core cognitive domains with simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG). We found significantly greater symptoms of anxiety, depression, and loneliness in youth and in contrast, greater mental well-being in older adults. Yet, global performance across core cognitive domains was significantly worse in older adults. EEG-based source imaging of global cognitive task-evoked processing showed reduced suppression of activity in the anterior medial prefrontal default mode network (DMN) region in older adults relative to youth. Global cognitive performance efficiency was predicted by greater activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in younger adults and in contrast, by greater activity in right inferior frontal cortex in older adults. Furthermore, greater mental well-being in older adults related to lesser global task-evoked activity in the posterior DMN. Overall, these results suggest dissociated neural mechanisms underlying global cognition and mental well-being in youth versus healthy aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
在健康老龄化的过程中，心理健康、认知及其潜在的神经过程很少被同时研究。在这里，在一组健康的年轻人（n=62）和老年人（n=54）样本中，我们同时使用脑电图（EEG）比较了主观心理健康以及几个核心认知领域的客观整体认知。我们发现，年轻人的焦虑、抑郁和孤独症状明显更严重，而老年人的心理健康状况则明显更好。然而，老年人在核心认知领域的整体表现明显更差。基于 EEG 的全局认知任务诱发处理的源成像显示，与年轻人相比，老年人的前内侧前额叶默认模式网络（DMN）区域的活动抑制减少。年轻人的右侧背外侧前额叶皮质活动越大，全局认知表现效率越高，而老年人的右侧下额叶皮质活动越大，全局认知表现效率越高。此外，老年人的心理健康状况越好，与后 DMN 的全局任务诱发活动越少有关。总的来说，这些结果表明，年轻人和健康老龄化人群的整体认知和心理健康状况存在不同的神经机制。
