Modulation of attention networks serving reorientation in healthy aging

Abstract

Orienting attention to behaviorally relevant stimuli is essential for everyday functioning and mainly involves activity in the dorsal and ventral frontoparietal networks. Many studies have shown declines in the speed and accuracy of attentional reallocation with advancing age, but the underlying neural dynamics remain less understood. We investigated this age-related decline using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and a Posner task in 94 healthy adults (22-72 years old). MEG data were examined in the time-frequency domain, and significant oscillatory responses were imaged using a beamformer. We found that participants responded slower when attention reallocation was needed (i.e., the validity effect) and that this effect was positively correlated with age. We also found age-related validity effects on alpha activity in the left parietal and beta in the left frontal-eye fields from 350-950 ms. Overall, stronger alpha and beta responses were observed in younger participants during attention reallocation trials, but this pattern was reversed in the older participants. Interestingly, this alpha validity effect fully mediated the relationship between age and behavioral performance. In conclusion, older adults were slower in reorienting attention and exhibited age-related alterations in alpha and beta responses within parietal and frontal regions, which may reflect increased task demands depleting their compensatory resources.

High‐definition transcranial direct current stimulation of the occipital cortices induces polarity dependent effects within the brain regions serving attentional reorientation

“…The behavioral analysis indicated a significant validity effect in reaction time across all stimulation montages, which essentially reflects the cost of reorienting attention (Corbetta et al, 2008;Vossel et al, 2006) and has been repeatedly demonstrated by prior work utilizing the Posner cueing task (Arif, Spooner, Wiesman, Embury et al, 2020;Proskovec et al, 2018;.…”

“…Such attentional shifting is ubiquitous in daily functioning and the associated neural correlates have been extensively studied in healthy adults (Corbetta, Patel, & Shulman, 2008;Posner, 2016;Proskovec, Heinrichs-Graham, Wiesman, McDermott, & Wilson, 2018;Thiel, Zilles, & Fink, 2004;Vossel, Geng, & Fink, 2014), aging (Arif, Spooner, Wiesman, Embury et al, 2020;Daselaar, Huijbers, Eklund, Moscovitch, & Cabeza, 2013), and many other populations Georgiou-Karistianis, Churchyard, Chiu, & Bradshaw, 2002;Jimenez et al, 2016). Many of these studies have focused on neural activity in several nodes of dorsal and ventral attention networks (i.e., DAN and VAN), mainly frontal, parietal, and primary visual cortices.…”

Are there consistent abnormalities in event‐related EEG oscillations in patients with Alzheimer’s disease compared to other diseases belonging to dementia?

“…Like other frequency bands, event-related gamma responses are affected by physiological aging (Arif et al, 2020;Barr et al, 2014;Böttger et al, 2002;Christov & Dushanova, 2016;Gaetz et al, 2012;Goossens et al, 2016;Herrmann & Demiralp, 2005;Hogan et al, 2011;Murty et al, 2020;Ross et al, 2010;Ross et al, 2020;Wiesmann and Wilson, 2019). For example, Böttger et al (2002) showed lower phase-locked frontal gamma responses during a visual discrimination task in older CU participants.…”

Regular recreational Cannabis users exhibit altered neural oscillatory dynamics during attention reorientation

“…Importantly, regions within both networks are activated upon the detection of behaviorally relevant targets and further amplified when attentional resources need to be reallocated to more behaviorally relevant stimuli (Corbetta et al, 2008). In addition to the neuroanatomical origins serving these attentional processes, recent studies have shown such activation comprises multispectral neural oscillatory responses within these networks during attention reallocation (Arif et al, 2020 a , b ; Proskovec, Heinrichs-Graham, Wiesman, McDermott, & Wilson, 2018; Spooner, Wiesman, Proskovec, Heinrichs-Graham, & Wilson, 2020).…”