Effects of age on brain functional connectivity in auditory spatial selective attention

Aging may impair auditory perception in complex acoustic environments, especially auditory spatial selective attention. However, the brain functional connectivity involved has not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, 10 young adults and 10 older adults were recruited to collect behavioral and electroencephalogram (EEG) data while performing auditory spatial selective attention tasks. Furthermore, single- and multi-layer dynamic brain networks were constructed from the EEG signals to investigate the brain functional connectivity patterns of the two groups. Behavioral results showed that older adults had significantly lower accuracy and longer reaction times during the tasks compared to young adults, suggesting that older adults had greater difficulty performing the tasks. Furthermore, single-layer brain network analysis revealed that older adults have lower network coupling between the frontal and prefrontal lobes and global information transfer efficiency compared to young adults. Moreover, multi-layer dynamic brain network analysis revealed that older adults have a reduced ability to integrate cross-temporal information during the tasks compared to young adults, which is mainly reflected in multilayer modularity and multilayer participation coefficient. In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the coupling patterns of brain functional connectivity in young and older adults, providing neuroscientific evidence for understanding dynamic brain functional connectivity in aging.Clinical Relevance- This reveals the effect pattern of aging on brain functional connectivity, which may provide insights for future clinical interventions and treatment strategies targeting the aging population.