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Excessive sub-threshold motor preparation for non-target stimuli in normal aging
Antonino Vallesi1, Donald T Stuss
1International School for Advanced Studies, SISSA, Trieste, Italy. vallesi@sissa.it
Neuroimage
|January 19, 2010
Summary
Older adults show increased neural response preparation to distracting information, even when task performance is similar to younger adults. This enhanced preparation, detected via Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP), may be a trade-off for maintaining reaction speed.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroscience of Aging
Background:
- Neural mechanisms for suppressing distracting information become less efficient with age.
- Investigating age-related differences in processing non-target stimuli is crucial, especially when behavioral performance is matched.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if age-related changes in processing non-target stimuli are detectable even with matched behavioral performance.
- To explore the neural underpinnings of response preparation to distracting information in younger versus older adults.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a go/nogo task with varying cognitive interference levels and nogo stimuli.
- Recorded electroencephalography (EEG) to calculate the Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP), a measure of motor response preparation.
- Compared younger (19-36 years) and older (61-80 years) adults with matched task performance.
Main Results:
- Despite similar behavioral performance, older adults exhibited a more pronounced LRP for partial response preparation to both high- and low-conflict nogo stimuli.
- This enhanced preparation in older adults was observed even under conditions where both groups performed at ceiling.
Conclusions:
- Age-related enhancements in response preparation to non-target stimuli are detectable using sensitive measures like LRP, even without performance differences.
- Partial response preparation to nogo stimuli in older adults might represent a compensatory mechanism to maintain optimal reaction times for go stimuli in normal aging.
