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Orbitofrontal Cortex and the Early Processing of Visual Novelty in Healthy Aging
David A S Kaufman1, Cierra M Keith1, William M Perlstein2
1Department of Psychology, Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO, USA.
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
|May 21, 2016
Summary
Older adults show altered brain activity patterns, specifically enhanced frontal lobe engagement, during visual attention tasks. This suggests compensatory mechanisms in the aging brain to maintain cognitive function.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Aging
- Brain Imaging
Background:
- Event-related potential (ERP) studies suggest frontal shifts in attention networks with age.
- Aging may require increased top-down control for attentional facilitation.
- The precise neural time course of attentional control in aging remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural time course of top-down attentional control in aging.
- To examine age-related differences in brain activity during a visual attention task.
- To explore the relationship between neural activity and cognitive performance in older adults.
Main Methods:
- High-density ERPs were recorded from 20 young and 14 older adults during a three-stimulus visual oddball task.
- Colorful distracters were used to engage early visual processing.
- Neural source modeling was applied to identify brain regions involved in attentional processing.
Main Results:
- Older adults showed elevated occipital early posterior positivity (EPP) around 100 ms after stimulus presentation.
- Neural source models implicated orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activity in older adults during early visual novelty processing.
- OFC activity in older adults correlated with primary visual cortex activation and was linked to performance on attention and executive function tests.
Conclusions:
- Age-related compensatory neural changes may involve increased top-down control and potentially weaker cortical efficiency.
- Enhanced early OFC activity during visual attention could indicate frontal lobe integrity in healthy aging.
- Altered neural processing in aging suggests adaptive mechanisms to maintain attentional control.
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