Guo Sheng-Ju, Wang Ping, Cao Li-Zhi, Li Hui-Jie
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Science and Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Geroscience. 2025 Jan 31. doi: 10.1007/s11357-025-01542-8.
Executive functions (EFs), encompassing inhibition, shifting, and updating as three fundamental subdomains, are typically characterized by a unity/diversity construct. However, given the dedifferentiation trend observed in aging, it remains controversial whether the construct of EFs in older adults becomes unidimensional or maintains unity/diversity. This study aims to explore and validate the construct of EFs in older adults. At the behavioral level, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis on data from 222 older adults who completed six tasks specifically targeting inhibition, shifting, and updating. One unidimensional model and six unity/diversity models of EFs were evaluated. Our results indicated that the EFs of older adults demonstrated greater congruence with the unity/diversity construct. At neural level, thirty older adults completed three thematically consistent fMRI tasks, targeting three subdomains of EFs respectively. Multivariate pattern analysis showed that rostromedial prefrontal cortex robustly showed similar neural representation across different tasks (unity). Meanwhile, the three EF domains were encoded by distinct global neural representation and the lateral prefrontal cortex play a crucial role in classification (diversity). These findings underscore the unity/diversity framework of EFs in older adults and offer important insights for designing interventions aimed at improving EFs in this population.
执行功能（EFs）包括抑制、转换和更新这三个基本子领域，通常以统一/多样结构为特征。然而，鉴于在衰老过程中观察到的去分化趋势，老年人执行功能的结构是否变得单一维度或保持统一/多样仍存在争议。本研究旨在探索和验证老年人执行功能的结构。在行为层面，我们对222名完成了六项专门针对抑制、转换和更新任务的老年人的数据进行了验证性因素分析。评估了一个单一维度模型和六个执行功能的统一/多样模型。我们的结果表明，老年人的执行功能与统一/多样结构表现出更大的一致性。在神经层面，30名老年人完成了三项主题一致的功能磁共振成像任务，分别针对执行功能的三个子领域。多变量模式分析表明，前额叶内侧皮层在不同任务中强烈显示出相似的神经表征（统一性）。同时，三个执行功能领域由不同的全局神经表征编码，外侧前额叶皮层在分类中起关键作用（多样性）。这些发现强调了老年人执行功能的统一/多样框架，并为设计旨在改善该人群执行功能的干预措施提供了重要见解。
