Brain functional characterization of response-code conflict in dual-tasking and its modulation by age.

Crosstalk between conflicting response codes contributes to interference in dual-tasking, an effect exacerbated in advanced age. Here, we investigated (i) brain activity correlates of such response-code conflicts, (ii) activity modulations by individual dual-task performance and related cognitive abilities, (iii) task-modulated connectivity within the task network, and (iv) age-related differences in all these aspects. Young and older adults underwent fMRI while responding to the pitch of tones through spatially mapped speeded button presses with one or two hands concurrently. Using opposing stimulus-response mappings between hands, we induced conflict between simultaneously activated response codes. These response-code conflicts elicited activation in key regions of the multiple-demand network. While thalamic and parietal areas of the conflict-related network were modulated by attentional, working-memory and task-switching abilities, efficient conflict resolution in dual-tasking mainly relied on increasing supplementary motor activity. Older adults showed non-compensatory hyperactivity in left superior frontal gyrus, and higher right premotor activity was modulated by working-memory capacity. Finally, connectivity between premotor or parietal seed regions and the conflict-sensitive network was neither conflict-specific nor age-sensitive. Overall, resolving dual-task response-code conflict recruited substantial parts of the multiple-demand network, whose activity and coupling, however, were only little affected by individual differences in task performance or age.

Response-code conflict in dual-task interference and its modulation by age.

Difficulties in performing two tasks at once can arise from several sources and usually increase in advanced age. Tasks with concurrent bimodal (e.g., manual and oculomotor) responding to single stimuli consistently revealed crosstalk between conflicting response codes as a relevant source. However, how this finding translates to unimodal (i.e., manual only) response settings and how it is affected by age remains open. To address this issue, we had young and older adults respond to high- or low-pitched tones with one (single task) or both hands concurrently (dual task). Responses were either compatible or incompatible with the pitch. When responses with the same level of compatibility were combined in dual-task conditions, their response codes were congruent to each other, whereas combining a compatible and an incompatible response created mutually incongruent (i.e., conflicting) response codes, potentially inducing detrimental crosstalk. Across age groups, dual-task costs indeed were overall highest with response-code incongruency. In these trials, compatible responses exhibited higher costs than incompatible ones, even after removing trials with strongly synchronized responses. This underadditive cost asymmetry argues against mutual crosstalk as the sole source of interference and corroborates notions of strategic prioritization of limited processing capacity based on mapping-selection difficulty. As expected, the effects of incongruent response codes were found to be especially deleterious in older adults, supporting assumptions of age-related deficits in multiple-action control at the level of task-shielding. Overall, our results suggest that aging is linked to higher response confusability and less efficient flexibility for capacity sharing in dual-task settings.

Age differences in predicting working memory performance from network-based functional connectivity.

Deterioration in working memory capacity (WMC) has been associated with normal aging, but it remains unknown how age affects the relationship between WMC and connectivity within functional brain networks. We therefore examined the predictability of WMC from fMRI-based resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) within eight meta-analytically defined functional brain networks and the connectome in young and old adults using relevance vector machine in a robust cross-validation scheme. Particular brain networks have been associated with mental functions linked to WMC to a varying degree and are associated with age-related differences in performance. Comparing prediction performance between the young and old sample revealed age-specific effects: In young adults, we found a general unpredictability of WMC from RSFC in networks subserving WM, cognitive action control, vigilant attention, theory-of-mind cognition, and semantic memory, whereas in older adults each network significantly predicted WMC. Moreover, both WM-related and WM-unrelated networks were differently predictive in older adults with low versus high WMC. These results indicate that the within-network functional coupling during task-free states is specifically related to individual task performance in advanced age, suggesting neural-level reorganization. In particular, our findings support the notion of a decreased segregation of functional brain networks, deterioration of network integrity within different networks and/or compensation by reorganization as factors driving associations between individual WMC and within-network RSFC in older adults. Thus, using multivariate pattern regression provided novel insights into age-related brain reorganization by linking cognitive capacity to brain network integrity.

Predicting personality from network-based resting-state functional connectivity.

Personality is associated with variation in all kinds of mental faculties, including affective, social, executive, and memory functioning. The intrinsic dynamics of neural networks underlying these mental functions are reflected in their functional connectivity at rest (RSFC). We, therefore, aimed to probe whether connectivity in functional networks allows predicting individual scores of the five-factor personality model and potential gender differences thereof. We assessed nine meta-analytically derived functional networks, representing social, affective, executive, and mnemonic systems. RSFC of all networks was computed in a sample of 210 males and 210 well-matched females and in a replication sample of 155 males and 155 females. Personality scores were predicted using relevance vector machine in both samples. Cross-validation prediction accuracy was defined as the correlation between true and predicted scores. RSFC within networks representing social, affective, mnemonic, and executive systems significantly predicted self-reported levels of Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Openness. RSFC patterns of most networks, however, predicted personality traits only either in males or in females. Personality traits can be predicted by patterns of RSFC in specific functional brain networks, providing new insights into the neurobiology of personality. However, as most associations were gender-specific, RSFC-personality relations should not be considered independently of gender.

On the integrity of functional brain networks in schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and advanced age: Evidence from connectivity-based single-subject classification.

Previous whole-brain functional connectivity studies achieved successful classifications of patients and healthy controls but only offered limited specificity as to affected brain systems. Here, we examined whether the connectivity patterns of functional systems affected in schizophrenia (SCZ), Parkinson's disease (PD), or normal aging equally translate into high classification accuracies for these conditions. We compared classification performance between pre-defined networks for each group and, for any given network, between groups. Separate support vector machine classifications of 86 SCZ patients, 80 PD patients, and 95 older adults relative to their matched healthy/young controls, respectively, were performed on functional connectivity in 12 task-based, meta-analytically defined networks using 25 replications of a nested 10-fold cross-validation scheme. Classification performance of the various networks clearly differed between conditions, as those networks that best classified one disease were usually non-informative for the other. For SCZ, but not PD, emotion-processing, empathy, and cognitive action control networks distinguished patients most accurately from controls. For PD, but not SCZ, networks subserving autobiographical or semantic memory, motor execution, and theory-of-mind cognition yielded the best classifications. In contrast, young-old classification was excellent based on all networks and outperformed both clinical classifications. Our pattern-classification approach captured associations between clinical and developmental conditions and functional network integrity with a higher level of specificity than did previous whole-brain analyses. Taken together, our results support resting-state connectivity as a marker of functional dysregulation in specific networks known to be affected by SCZ and PD, while suggesting that aging affects network integrity in a more global way. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5845-5858, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.