Cognitive Health and Recovery Research Lab, Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Brain Repair Centre, Dalhousie University, 1348 Summer St, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada; Neurocognitive Imaging Lab, Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, NS, B3H 4J1, Canada.
Cognitive Health and Recovery Research Lab, Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Brain Repair Centre, Dalhousie University, 1348 Summer St, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada.
Neuropsychologia. 2023 Jun 6;184:108546. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108546. Epub 2023 Mar 24.
Aging is associated with changes in cognitive function, including declines in learning, memory, and executive function. Prism adaptation (PA) is a useful paradigm to measure changes in explicit and implicit mechanisms of visuo-motor learning with age, but the neural correlates are not well understood. In the present study, we used PA to investigate visuo-motor learning and error processing in older adults. Twenty older adults (56-85 yrs) and 20 younger adults (18-33 yrs) underwent a goal-oriented reaching task while wearing prism goggles as continuous EEG was recorded to examine neural correlates of error detection. We examined behavioural measures of PA, as well as ERP components previously found associated with the early and late phases of adaptation to visual distortion caused by the prism goggles. Our results indicate important age-related behavioural and neurophysiological differences. Older adults reached more slowly than younger adults but showed the same accuracy throughout the prism exposure. Older adults also displayed larger aftereffects, indicating preserved visuomotor adaptation. EEG results indicated similar initial error processing in older and younger adults, as measured by the feedback error related negativity (FRN). As seen previously in young adults, the P3a and P3b declined over the prism exposure phase in both groups. Older adults displayed reduced P3a amplitude compared to the younger group in the early phase of adaptation, however, suggesting reduced attentional orienting. Finally, the older group exhibited a greater P3b amplitude compared to the younger group in the later phases of adaptation, potentially a marker of enhanced context updating underlying spatial realignment, leading to their larger aftereffect. Implications for age-related learning differences and clinical applications are discussed.
衰老是与认知功能的变化相关的，包括学习、记忆和执行功能的下降。棱镜适应（PA）是一种有用的范式，可以衡量年龄相关的视动学习的显式和隐式机制的变化，但神经相关性尚不清楚。在本研究中，我们使用 PA 来研究老年人的视动学习和错误处理。20 名老年人（56-85 岁）和 20 名年轻人（18-33 岁）在戴棱镜眼镜时进行了有目标的伸手任务，同时记录连续 EEG 以检查错误检测的神经相关性。我们检查了 PA 的行为测量，以及之前与棱镜眼镜引起的视觉扭曲的早期和晚期适应相关的 ERP 成分。我们的结果表明存在重要的与年龄相关的行为和神经生理学差异。老年人的速度比年轻人慢，但在整个棱镜暴露过程中表现出相同的准确性。老年人还表现出更大的后效，表明视觉运动适应得到保留。脑电图结果表明，在老年人和年轻人中，初始错误处理相似，如反馈误差相关负波（FRN）所测量的。与年轻人之前的研究一样，在两组中，P3a 和 P3b 在棱镜暴露阶段都随着时间的推移而下降。与年轻组相比，老年人在适应的早期阶段 P3a 振幅较小，这表明注意力定向减少。最后，与年轻组相比，老年组在适应的后期阶段 P3b 振幅较大，这可能是空间重新定位的背景更新增强的标志，导致其更大的后效。讨论了与年龄相关的学习差异和临床应用的意义。
