Effects of aging on hemispheric asymmetry in inferior frontal cortex activity during belief–bias syllogistic reasoning: A near-infrared spectroscopy study

Performance of younger and older adults in lateralised right and left hemisphere asymmetry tasks supports the HAROLD model

“…These response modes and requirements are not directly comparable complicating direct comparisons of task performances. Fourthly, we followed the reasoning of previous authors assuming that lateralized or rather less lateralized performance in older individuals is related to cognitive decline (see introduction, see also Cabeza, 2002;Cherry et al, 2005;Tsujii et al, 2010), but did not test for other cognitive functions.…”

“…A relatively recent qualitative metaanalysis on findings from imaging studies hinted at a particularly affected right dorsal and anterior prefrontal cortex (Rajah & D'Esposito, 2005). Beyond observations of changes in functional hemispheric asymmetries, these changes seem cognitively advantageous to the older adults; additional contralateral hemispheric involvement has been associated with relative enhanced cognitive functioning in older adults ReuterLorenz et al, 2001;Tsujii et al, 2010), conclusions that were also inferred from studies using lateralized divided half-field paradigms (Cherry, Adamson, Duclos, & Hellige, 2005;Reuter-Lorenz, Stanczak, & Miller, 1999).…”

“…Two models on the cerebral markers of healthy aging have been presented with the first being the right hemi-aging model (RHAM) (Albert & Moss, 1988;Brown & Jaffe, 1975), and a later model being the Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults (HAROLD) Model (Cabeza, 2002). Both models assume that the human brain compensates for age-related changes in neuronal mechanisms that affect cognitive functioning by methods of reorganization and changes on functional connectivity (see also Cabeza, 2001;Grady et al, 1994;Raz, 2000;Tsujii, Okada, & Watanabe, 2010). As will be shown, it is common to both models that they focus on changes in common patterns of functional hemispheric asymmetry.…”

Neural Mechanisms for Dual-Process Reasoning: Evidence from the Belief-Bias Effect

“…In general, enhanced oxy-Hb and reduced deoxy-Hb are associated with regional cortical activation. NIRS is noninvasive, robust against body movement and has been validated as a suitable technique for investigating neural mechanisms in psychological experiments (Tsujii et al, 2007(Tsujii et al, , 2009a(Tsujii et al, , 2009b(Tsujii et al, , 2010b(Tsujii et al, , 2010c(Tsujii et al, , 2011b.…”

“…Thus, a series of fNIRS studies in our laboratory examined the attention-demanding and time-consuming properties of the analytic reasoning system and IFC activity using fNIRS . In addition, we examined the aging effect on hemispheric asymmetry in IFC activity using fNIRS (Tsujii et al, 2010b). examined the relationship between dual-task effect and IFC activity during belief-bias reasoning by fNIRS.…”