The Event-Related P300 Potential Analysis of Cognitive Human Brain Aging: A Review

Abstract

Event-related P300 potentials are closely reflecting cognitive functions such as stimulus evaluation time (P300 latency) and task relevance (P300 amplitude). Hence, both their potential clinical application for detecting slight cognitive disturbances and an increasing interest in the aging of cognitive human brain functions resulted in a growing number of studies on age-related P300 changes. Although there are converging lines of evidence that aging results in prolongations of P300 latencies, reductions of P300 amplitudes and a more equipotential P300 scalp distribution, the amount of these changes and the best fit for the P300-age interactions, respectively, remain still controversial. In general, these P300 alterations obviously reflect only minor cognitive changes during normal aging. For their clinical application, however, it is necessary to obtain an age-matched normative database. Furthermore, the increased P300 variability in the elderly has to be reduced – as far as possible – by appropriate simple P300 paradigms which should be preferentially applied in longitudinal analyses to differentiate normal from pathological aging of cognitive functions. Finally, additional cross-correlational analyses between the P300 and morphological as well as neurobiochemical data are needed. By these means, our knowledge about age-related changes of cognitive brain functions should be considerably enlarged.

Potencial cognitivo P300 realizado em campo livre: aplicabilidade do teste

“…Some authors reported that the central nervous system is mature only at the age of 17 years, owing to the process of neurological maturation (Buchwald, 1990 3 ), in which there is increase in intra and inter-cortical connectivity, as reported 16 . However, it is believed that P300 may be carried out in children as of the age of 7.…”

Reward expectation modulates feedback-related negativity and EEG spectra

“…One might wonder whether our ERP effects are more related to the P300, a complex of ERP modulations that has been related to stimulus probability, subjective confidence, and target detection (Donchin and Coles, 1988;Johnson, 1993;Kugler et al, 1993;Polich and Kok, 1995;Squires et al, 1976). Although the later temporal peak of the probability effect is consistent with this speculation, several considerations suggest that the probability-related ERP modulations are more closely related to the FRN than to the P300.…”

A neurocomputational model of stochastic resonance and aging

“…For instance, a classical hypothesis in neurocognitive aging research states that the aging brain is noisier [42], due to deteriorations in various transmitter systems [1,2,13,15,35,36,45], such as acetylcholine (Ach) and monoamines (e.g., dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin), and degenerations in structural integrity, such as reductions in gray and white matter density and brain volume shrinkages in prefrontal cortex and hippocampus [4,33] as well as attenuated functional connectivity between these cortical regions [11]. Brain electrophysiological activities captured by EEG recordings show aging-related increase in variability [16]. Noisy fluctuations in cognitive and sensorimotor processes also increase with aging [19,22,23,27].…”