Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 106308, Taiwan
Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 106308, Taiwan.
eNeuro. 2023 Aug 11;10(8). doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0156-23.2023. Print 2023 Aug.
From the perspective of predictive coding, normal aging is accompanied by decreased weighting of sensory inputs and increased reliance on predictions, resulting in the attenuation of prediction errors in older age. Recent electroencephalography (EEG) research further revealed that the age-related shift from sensorium to predictions is hierarchy-selective, as older brains show little reduction in lower-level but significant suppression in higher-level prediction errors. Moreover, the disrupted propagation of prediction errors from the lower-level to the higher-level seems to be linked to deficient maintenance of information in working memory. However, it is unclear whether the hierarchical predictive processing continues to decline with advancing age as working memory. Here, we longitudinally followed a sample of 78 participants from three age groups (including seniors, adults, and adolescents) over three years' time. Seniors exhibited largely preserved local processing [consisting of comparable mismatch negativity (MMN), delayed P3a, and comparable reorienting negativity (RON)] but significantly compromised global processing (consisting of suppressed frontocentral negativity and suppressed P3b) in the auditory local-global paradigm. These electrophysiological responses did not change with the passing of time, unlike working memory which deteriorated with advancing age. Correlation analysis further showed that these electrophysiological responses signaling prediction errors are indicative of concurrent working memory. Moreover, there was a correlation between earlier predictive processing and later working memory but not between earlier working memory and later predictive processing. The temporal asymmetry suggested that the hierarchy-selective attenuation of prediction errors is likely a precursor of working memory decline.
从预测编码的角度来看，正常衰老伴随着感觉输入权重的降低和对预测的依赖增加，导致老年时预测误差的衰减。最近的脑电图（EEG）研究进一步表明，与年龄相关的从感觉到预测的转变是层次选择性的，因为老年人的大脑在较低层次上几乎没有减少，但在较高层次上的预测误差明显受到抑制。此外，预测误差从较低层次到较高层次的传播中断似乎与工作记忆中信息的维持不足有关。然而，目前尚不清楚随着年龄的增长，预测处理是否会继续像工作记忆那样下降。在这里，我们对来自三个年龄组（包括老年人、成年人和青少年）的 78 名参与者进行了三年的纵向随访。老年人在听觉局部-全局范式中表现出局部处理（包括可比的失匹配负波[MMN]、延迟 P3a 和可比的重定向负波[RON]）基本保留，但全局处理明显受损（包括额中央负波和 P3b 抑制）。这些电生理反应并没有随着时间的推移而改变，而工作记忆则随着年龄的增长而恶化。相关分析进一步表明，这些信号预测误差的电生理反应与并发工作记忆有关。此外，预测处理的早期与工作记忆的后期之间存在相关性，但工作记忆的早期与预测处理的后期之间不存在相关性。这种时间上的不对称表明，预测误差的层次选择性衰减可能是工作记忆下降的前兆。
