González-Roldán A M, Delgado-Bitata M, Dorado A, Costa da Silva I, Montoya P
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and Clinical Psychology, Research Institute of Health Sciences (IUNICS) and Balearic Islands Health Research Institute (IdISBa), University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Palma, Spain.
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and Clinical Psychology, Research Institute of Health Sciences (IUNICS) and Balearic Islands Health Research Institute (IdISBa), University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Palma, Spain.
Neurobiol Aging. 2025 Jun;150:172-181. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2025.03.009. Epub 2025 Mar 18.
Studies examining the interplay between chronic pain, cognitive function, and functional brain abnormalities in older adults are scarce. To address this gap, we administered a series of neuropsychological tests and recorded electroencephalography (EEG) data during resting-state conditions in 26 older adults with chronic pain (CPOA), 30 pain-free older adults (OA), and 31 younger adults (YA). CPOA demonstrated poorer performance compared to OA on the Stroop test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and Digit Span. Both groups of older adults exhibited higher beta activity compared to younger adults, with CPOA displaying particularly elevated beta-2 activity localized in the posterior cingulate cortex compared to OA. Correlational analyses indicated that in CPOA participants, heightened beta activity was linked to decreased performance on the WCST. Conversely, in OA, we observed a positive correlation between beta activity and performance on the WCST. Overall, our findings suggest that the cumulative impact of pain in aging would diminish the effectiveness of the functional compensatory mechanisms that occur during healthy aging, exacerbating cognitive decline.
针对老年人慢性疼痛、认知功能和功能性脑异常之间相互作用的研究很少。为了填补这一空白，我们对26名患有慢性疼痛的老年人（CPOA）、30名无疼痛的老年人（OA）和31名年轻人（YA）进行了一系列神经心理学测试，并在静息状态下记录了脑电图（EEG）数据。在斯特鲁普测试、威斯康星卡片分类测试（WCST）和数字广度测试中，CPOA与OA相比表现较差。与年轻人相比，两组老年人的β波活动均较高，与OA相比，CPOA在扣带回后部表现出特别升高的β-2波活动。相关性分析表明，在CPOA参与者中，β波活动增强与WCST表现下降有关。相反，在OA中，我们观察到β波活动与WCST表现之间存在正相关。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，衰老过程中疼痛的累积影响会削弱健康衰老过程中发生的功能性代偿机制的有效性，加剧认知衰退。
