The Relationship Between Frontal Gray Matter Volume and Cognition Varies Across the Healthy Adult Lifespan

Zimmerman, Molly E.; Brickman, Adam M.; Paul, Robert; Grieve, Stuart M.; Tate, David F.; Gunstad, John; Cohen, Ronald A.; Aloia, Mark S.; Williams, Leanne M.; Clark, Christopher; Whitford, Thomas J.; Gordon, Evian

doi:10.1097/01.jgp.0000238502.40963.ac

Cited by 178 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…One is the age-related neuropsychological decline in brain regions that are involved in emotion recognition and processing. Although the amygdala, in comparison with other brain regions like the frontal lobes, is relatively preserved through advancing age, its volume has been shown to decrease linearly as people get older (Grieve, Clark, Williams, Peduto, & Gordon, 2005;Zimmerman et al, 2006). According to Ruffman et al (2008), the age-related volume reduction in the amygdala and cingulate cortex would mediate the decline in the perception of sad and scared/fearful expressions that has been observed in behavioural measures.…”

Section: Explanatory Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Emotion recognition in music changes across the adult life span

Lima

Castro

2011

Cognition & Emotion

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In comparison with other modalities, the recognition of emotion in music has received little attention. An unexplored question is whether and how emotion recognition in music changes as a function of aging. In the present study, healthy adults aged between 17 and 84 years (N = 114) judged the magnitude to which a set of musical excerpts (Vieillard et al., 2008) expressed happiness, peacefulness, sadness and fear/threat. The results revealed emotion specific age-related changes: advancing age was associated with a gradual decrease in responsiveness to sad and scary music from middle age onwards, whereas the recognition of happiness and peacefulness, both positive emotional qualities, remained stable from young adulthood to older age. Additionally, the number of years of music training was associated with more accurate categorization of the musical emotions examined here. We argue that these findings are consistent with two accounts on how aging might influence the recognition of emotions: motivational changes towards positivity and, to a lesser extent, selective neuropsychological decline.

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Section: Explanatory Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Emotion recognition in music changes across the adult life span

Lima

Castro

2011

Cognition & Emotion

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“…Findings based on longitudinal studies generally support these cross-sectional results (de Frias et al, 2007;Schneider et al, 2005). At the same time, the human brain circuitries that contribute to WM undergo nonlinear and heterochronic changes during childhood development and aging, such that different brain regions are more or less prone to effects of maturation, learning, and senescence, and differentially affect the dynamic interactions between brain regions in different age groups (Gogtay et al, 2004;Raz et al, 2005;Raz and Rodrigue, 2006;Sowell et al, 2003Sowell et al, , 2004Zimmerman et al, 2006). How changes in neural functioning and observed age-related behavioral changes are associated is only poorly understood (cf.…”

Section: Functional Neuroanatomy Of the Working Memory Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Senescent changes in the structures, functions, and mechanisms of information processing in WM Neuroanatomical and neurochemical 2 brain changes are widespread in normal aging. The shrinkage of human brain grey matter volume is especially pronounced in hippocampal (Jernigan et al, 2001;Raz et al, 2005;Zimmerman et al, 2006) and frontal brain regions (Bergfield et al, 2010;Giorgio et al, 2010;Greenwood, 2000Greenwood, , 2007Jernigan et al, 2001;Raz et al, 2005;Raz and Rodrigue, 2006;Resnick et al, 2000;Sowell et al, 2003;Zimmerman et al, 2006), areas that subserve mnemonic and attentional functions. Some researchers suggest that age-associated decline of the prefrontal lobes plays a major role in cognitive aging (Lindenberger et al, in press;Raz and Rodrigue, 2006;Stuss et al, 1996;West, 1996).…”

Section: Functional Neuroanatomy Of the Working Memory Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This notion is based on the observation that posterior and frontal brain regions undergo nonlinear, heterochronic changes across the lifespan and are differentially affected by effects of maturation, learning and senescence (Gogtay et al, 2004;Raz et al, 2005;Raz and Rodrigue, 2006;Sowell et al, 2003Sowell et al, , 2004Zimmerman et al, 2006). By middle childhood, most posterior brain regions are relatively mature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lifespan age differences in working memory: A two-component framework

Sander

Lindenberger

Werkle‐Bergner

2012

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

130

101

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a b s t r a c tWe suggest that working memory (WM) performance can be conceptualized as the interplay of low-level feature binding processes and top-down control, relating to posterior and frontal brain regions and their interaction in a distributed neural network. We propose that due to age-differential trajectories of posterior and frontal brain regions top-down control processes are not fully mature until young adulthood and show marked decline with advancing age, whereas binding processes are relatively mature in children, but show senescent decline in older adults. A review of the literature spanning from middle childhood to old age shows that binding and top-down control processes undergo profound changes across the lifespan. We illustrate commonalities and dissimilarities between children, younger adults, and older adults reflecting the change in the two components' relative contribution to visual WM performance across the lifespan using results from our own lab. We conclude that an integrated account of visual WM lifespan changes combining research from behavioral neuroscience and cognitive psychology of child development as well as aging research opens avenues to advance our understanding of cognition in general.

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“…[16,17]. Moreover some studies indicated also a reduction of the volume of amygdala with age [18][19][20][21]. Following this evidences we might hypothesize that the deficit in the recognition of some emotional expressions by older people could depend on the loss of brain volume due to aging neural modifications in some areas relevant for emotion recognition [9,17,23].…”

mentioning

confidence: 76%

Emotion Recognition and Aging: Research Perspectives

Pierguidi¹,

Righi²

2016

Clin Exp Psychol

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EditorialAn important aspect that has raised the interest of many scholars in last decades concerns the changes in conscious and unconscious perception that occurs over the life span. In particular, social perception has gained great consideration due to his fundamental role in the human interaction dynamics. The capacity of forming impressions and make inferences about other people refers broadly to the ability to understand and react appropriately to the social signals sent out by other people. This ability in identify the other people's emotions is a predictor of well-being, mental health and social competency.The recognition of other people's feelings is possible through the decoding of different kinds of expression such as changes in facial expression, eye contact, body posture and movements. A difficulty in emotion recognition, that is a central component of nonverbal communication, is considered a critical factor associated with the maintenance of various psychopathologies [1]. One of the main clues that people grasp to identify emotional states of others is linked to changes in facial expression. There are in fact a wide range of neural systems that are involved in this capacity including: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [2], ventral striatum [3], superior temporal sulcus [4,5] and processing areas in the parietal and occipital lobes [6]. The amygdala is specialized in the detection of facial expressions of fear [6,[7][8][9][10][11] whereas basal ganglia and insula are specialized in the detection of disgusted faces [3]. Several studies point out that older adults have more difficulty than younger when recognizing emotion from facial expressions, in particular for anger, sadness and fear [12,13]. Although there are many experimental studies that have focused on this aspect, the link between the impairment in other's emotions recognition and the cognitive modifications that occur during life span is still debated. Some scholars have pointed out a correlation between age-related changes in the capacity of emotion recognition and the well-known modifications of brain regions caused by aging [3,14,15]. Specifically, the age-related modifications of frontal and temporal areas may have a main role in emotion recognition impairments. [16,17]. Moreover some studies indicated also a reduction of the volume of amygdala with age [18][19][20][21]. Following this evidences we might hypothesize that the deficit in the recognition of some emotional expressions by older people could depend on the loss of brain volume due to aging neural modifications in some areas relevant for emotion recognition [9,17,23]. On the other hand, some scholars hypothesized a further theory that suggests the establishment of a perceptual bias in elderly people, known as the "Positivity effect". This effect would be the reflection of an information processing bias in attention and memory that impairs the capacity of pay attention on negative emotional stimuli when presented jointly to positive ones [24][25][26]. The "Positivity effect" is evi...

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The Relationship Between Frontal Gray Matter Volume and Cognition Varies Across the Healthy Adult Lifespan

Cited by 178 publications

References 52 publications

Emotion recognition in music changes across the adult life span

Emotion recognition in music changes across the adult life span

Lifespan age differences in working memory: A two-component framework

Emotion Recognition and Aging: Research Perspectives

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