Effects of age on brain functional connectivity in auditory spatial selective attention
Summary
Older adults show impaired auditory attention due to reduced brain functional connectivity, particularly in integrating cross-temporal information. This research offers neuroscientific insights into aging effects on brain networks.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Perception
- Aging Research
Background:
- Aging can negatively impact auditory perception in complex environments, especially auditory spatial selective attention.
- The brain functional connectivity underlying these age-related changes remains under-investigated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate differences in brain functional connectivity between young and older adults during auditory spatial selective attention tasks.
- To explore how aging affects dynamic brain network patterns.
Main Methods:
- Recruited 10 young and 10 older adults for behavioral and electroencephalogram (EEG) data collection.
- Constructed single- and multi-layer dynamic brain networks from EEG signals.
- Analyzed network coupling, global information transfer efficiency, multilayer modularity, and multilayer participation coefficient.
Main Results:
- Older adults exhibited lower accuracy and longer reaction times, indicating task difficulties.
- Older adults showed reduced frontal-prefrontal network coupling and global information transfer efficiency.
- Reduced cross-temporal information integration was observed in older adults, evidenced by lower multilayer modularity and participation coefficients.
Conclusions:
- Aging significantly alters brain functional connectivity patterns during auditory spatial selective attention.
- Reduced network coupling and impaired cross-temporal information integration characterize aging-related changes in brain networks.
- Findings provide neuroscientific evidence for understanding brain network dynamics in aging and may inform clinical interventions.
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