Chow Ricky, Baker Stevenson, Mo Shimin, Bugos Jennifer A, Alain Claude, Rosenbaum R Shayna
Department of Psychology, Centre for Integrative and Applied Neuroscience, and Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada; Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1, Canada.
Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada; Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A8, Canada.
Neurobiol Aging. 2025 Mar;147:32-48. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2024.11.012. Epub 2024 Dec 4.
Does precision in auditory perception predict precision in subsequent memory (i.e., mnemonic discrimination) in aging? This study examined if the mismatch negativity (MMN), an electrophysiological marker of change detection and encoding, relates to age differences in mnemonic discrimination. The MMN was recorded in 92 adults (18-86 years, 47 females) in a passive oddball paradigm using tone sequences. Participants then completed a surprise recognition test for presented sequences (i.e., old targets) against novel sequences (i.e., similar lures and dissimilar foils). Across the adult lifespan, MMN amplitudes showed attenuation with increasing age, accompanied by worse performance discriminating targets from lures and foils. Across participants, smaller MMN amplitude predicted worse recognition performance. Notably, MMN amplitude partially explained age-related declines in target-lure discriminability, but not target-foil discriminability. Findings reinforce the MMN as a marker of mnemonic discrimination, and clarify how age-related declines in memory precision at retrieval may be explained by age differences at encoding.
听觉感知的精确性是否能预测衰老过程中后续记忆（即记忆辨别）的精确性？本研究考察了失匹配负波（MMN）这一变化检测和编码的电生理指标是否与记忆辨别中的年龄差异相关。在92名成年人（年龄18 - 86岁，47名女性）中，采用被动oddball范式，利用音调序列记录MMN。参与者随后针对呈现的序列（即旧目标）与新序列（即相似诱饵和不相似陪衬）完成了一项意外识别测试。在整个成年期，MMN波幅随年龄增长而衰减，同时区分目标与诱饵和陪衬的表现也更差。在所有参与者中，较小的MMN波幅预示着较差的识别表现。值得注意的是，MMN波幅部分解释了与年龄相关的目标 - 诱饵辨别能力下降，但不能解释目标 - 陪衬辨别能力下降。研究结果强化了MMN作为记忆辨别指标的作用，并阐明了检索时与年龄相关的记忆精确性下降如何可以由编码时的年龄差异来解释。
