Lin Tian, Rana Mohit, Liu Peiwei, Polk Rebecca, Heemskerk Amber, Weisberg Steven M, Bowers Dawn, Sitaram Ranganatha, Ebner Natalie C
Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
Institute of Biological and Medical Engineering, Department of Psychiatry and Section of Neuroscience, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, Chile.
Brain Sci. 2024 Sep 18;14(9):931. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14090931.
Selective attention declines with age, due to age-related functional changes in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI) neurofeedback has been used in young adults to train volitional control of brain activity, including in dACC.
For the first time, this study used rtfMRI neurofeedback to train 19 young and 27 older adults in volitional up- or down-regulation of bilateral dACC during a selective attention task.
Older participants in the up-regulation condition (experimental group) showed greater reward points and dACC BOLD signal across training sessions, reflective of neurofeedback training success; and faster reaction time and better response accuracy, suggesting behavioral benefits on selective attention. These effects were not observed for older participants in the down-regulation condition (inverse condition control group), supporting specificity of volitional dACC up-regulation training in older adults. These effects were, unexpectedly, also not observed for young participants in the up-regulation condition (age control group), perhaps due to a lack of motivation to continue the training.
These findings provide promising first evidence of functional plasticity in dACC in late life via rtfMRI neurofeedback up-regulation training, enhancing selective attention, and demonstrate proof of concept of rtfMRI neurofeedback training in cognitive aging.
由于背侧前扣带回皮质（dACC）与年龄相关的功能变化，选择性注意力会随着年龄的增长而下降。实时功能磁共振成像（rtfMRI）神经反馈已被用于年轻人，以训练对大脑活动的意志控制，包括对dACC的控制。
本研究首次使用rtfMRI神经反馈，在一项选择性注意力任务中，训练19名年轻人和27名老年人对双侧dACC进行意志性上调或下调。
上调条件组（实验组）的老年参与者在整个训练过程中表现出更高的奖励分数和dACC血氧水平依赖（BOLD）信号，这反映了神经反馈训练的成功；并且反应时间更快，反应准确性更高，表明对选择性注意力有行为上的益处。在下调条件组（反向条件对照组）的老年参与者中未观察到这些效应，这支持了老年成人意志性dACC上调训练的特异性。出乎意料的是，上调条件组（年龄对照组）的年轻参与者也未观察到这些效应，这可能是由于缺乏继续训练的动力。
这些发现首次提供了有前景的证据，表明通过rtfMRI神经反馈上调训练，老年期dACC具有功能可塑性，可增强选择性注意力，并证明了rtfMRI神经反馈训练在认知衰老中的概念验证。
