Age-Related Differences in Prestimulus EEG Affect ERPs and Behaviour in the Equiprobable Go/NoGo Task

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The auditory Go/NoGo task models sequential processing, with event-related potentials (ERPs) reflecting cognitive and perceptual components.
• Lifespan changes in electroencephalography (EEG) and task performance are known from childhood to old age.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between prestimulus EEG, poststimulus ERPs, and behavior across three age groups: children, young adults, and older adults.
• To analyze age-related differences in brain dynamics during an auditory Go/NoGo task.

Main Methods:

• Employed frequency Principal Component Analysis (f-PCA) for prestimulus EEG and temporal Principal Component Analysis (t-PCA) for poststimulus ERPs.
• Analyzed three gender-matched groups: children (8-12 years), young adults (18-24 years), and older adults (59-74 years).

Main Results:

• Links between EEG, ERPs, and behavior varied significantly across age groups.
• Young adults exhibited the simplest brain dynamics pattern with the best performance.
• Children showed the most complex brain dynamics pattern with the poorest performance, while older adults displayed intermediate complexity.

Conclusions:

• Novel brain dynamics patterns were identified, correlating with age-related performance differences in the Go/NoGo task.
• These findings offer insights into developmental trajectories of cognitive control and neural processing.
• The identified patterns hold potential for future developmental neuroscience research.