Age effects on event-related potentials in individuals with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment during semantic...

Both age and amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI), two major risk factors associated with Alzheimer's disease, have been associated with increased latency of event-related potentials, but how these factors interact has been less extensively evaluated. We examined the effects of age as a factor in 25 individuals with aMCI and in 25 age-matched normal controls (NC) during semantic categorization Go/NoGo tasks. We found that N2 latency was prolonged with increasing age in aMCI but not in the NC, and P3 latency was prolonged with increasing age in both groups. Furthermore, aMCI individuals showed significant prolongation in N2 latency compared to NC in the older age group, whereas such group differences were not observed in the younger age group. Our findings suggest that N2 latency corresponding to cognitive control is susceptible to a combination of age and disease effects, especially in older individuals, and thus may be useful in differentiating normal from pathological aging in this age group.