Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Chalder Fatigue Scale in clinical and general populations / Propiedades psicométricas de la versión española de la Escala de Fatiga de Chalder en población clínica y general

Objetivo: La Escala de Fatiga de Chalder (CFS) es una escala breve para evaluar fatiga que se utiliza en España, pero que no ha sido validada en su población. El objetivo del estudio fue adaptar y evaluar las propiedades psicométricas de la versión española de la CFS (Sp-CFS). Método: La muestra la conformaron 3,671 participantes (3.190 de la población general y 481 pacientes), con edades entre 18 y 86 años (M = 28.43; DT = 12.71), siendo el 67.6% mujeres. Las propiedades psicométricas de la escala se probaron en un diseño transversal utilizando validación cruzada (análisis factorial exploratorio y confirmatorio) y estimación de la invarianza (sexo y condición clínica). Resultados: Un modelo de cuatro factores (baja energía, problemas de sueño, problemas de concentración y disfunción cognitiva subjetiva) en lugar de un modelo original de dos factores (fatiga física y mental) proporcionó mejores índices de bondad de ajuste a los datos. La consistencia interna y la estabilidad de la escala fueron excelentes. Su validez convergente se apoyó en su asociación significativa con la ansiedad, la depresión, el estrés y los síntomas positivos y negativos del espectro de la psicosis. El instrumento no mostró diferencias significativas entre sexos ni condiciones clínicas, y discriminó entre la población general y los pacientes, obteniendo estos últimos puntajes significativamente mayores. Conclusiones: Sp-CFS es una escala fiable y válida para medir la fatiga en población general y clínica española.(AU)

Objective:The Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFS) is a brief self-report screening scale for fatigue that is used in Spain but has not been validated for the Spanish population. The aim of this study was to adapt and evalu-ate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the CFS (Sp-CFS). Method:The sample consisted of 3,671 participants (3,190 from the general population and 481 patients), aged 18 to 86 years (M=28.43; DT=12.71), 67.6% of whom were women. Psychometric properties of the scale were tested in a cross-sectional design using cross-validation (explora-tory and confirmatory factor analysis) and estimation of invariance (sex and clinical condition). Results:A four-factor model (low energy, sleep problems, concentration problems and subjective cognitive dysfunction) rather than an original two-factor model (physical and mental fatigue) pro-vided better indices of goodness of fit to the data. The internal consistencyand stability of the scale were excellent. Its convergent validity was sup-ported by its significant association with anxiety, depression, stress, and the positive and negative symptoms of the psychosis spectrum. The instru-ment did not show significant differences between sexes or clinical condi-tions, and it discriminated between the general population and the patients, with the latter obtaining significantly greater scores. Conclusions: Sp-CFS is a reliable and valid scale for measuring a transdiagnostic construct such as fatigue in Spanish general and clinical populations.(AU)

Shifts in attention drive context-dependent subspace encoding in anterior cingulate cortex in mice during decision making.

Attention supports decision making by selecting the features that are relevant for decisions. Selective enhancement of the relevant features and inhibition of distractors has been proposed as potential neural mechanisms driving this selection process. Yet, how attention operates when relevance cannot be directly determined, and the attention signal needs to be internally constructed is less understood. Here we recorded from populations of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of mice in an attention-shifting task where relevance of stimulus modalities changed across blocks of trials. In contrast with V1 recordings, decoding of the irrelevant modality gradually declined in ACC after an initial transient. Our analytical proof and a recurrent neural network model of the task revealed mutually inhibiting connections that produced context-gated suppression as observed in mice. Using this RNN model we predicted a correlation between contextual modulation of individual neurons and their stimulus drive, which we confirmed in ACC but not in V1.

Correcting for ERP latency jitter improves gaze-independent BCI decoding.

Objective.Patients suffering from heavy paralysis or Locked-in-Syndrome can regain communication using a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). Visual event-related potential (ERP) based BCI paradigms exploit visuospatial attention (VSA) to targets laid out on a screen. However, performance drops if the user does not direct their eye gaze at the intended target, harming the utility of this class of BCIs for patients suffering from eye motor deficits. We aim to create an ERP decoder that is less dependent on eye gaze.Approach.ERP component latency jitter plays a role in covert visuospatial attention (VSA) decoding. We introduce a novel decoder which compensates for these latency effects, termed Woody Classifier-based Latency Estimation (WCBLE). We carried out a BCI experiment recording ERP data in overt and covert visuospatial attention (VSA), and introduce a novel special case of covert VSA termed split VSA, simulating the experience of patients with severely impaired eye motor control. We evaluate WCBLE on this dataset and the BNCI2014-009 dataset, within and across VSA conditions to study the dependency on eye gaze and the variation thereof during the experiment.Main results.WCBLE outperforms state-of-the-art methods in the VSA conditions of interest in gaze-independent decoding, without reducing overt VSA performance. Results from across-condition evaluation show that WCBLE is more robust to varying VSA conditions throughout a BCI operation session.Significance. Together, these results point towards a pathway to achieving gaze independence through suited ERP decoding. Our proposed gaze-independent solution enhances decoding performance in those cases where performing overt VSA is not possible.

Interoceptive attention and mood in daily life: an experience-sampling study.

Theories of emotion ascribe a fundamental role to the processing of bodily signals (interoception) in emotional experience. Despite evidence consistent with this, current knowledge is limited by a focus on interoceptive accuracy and laboratory-based interoception measures. This experience-sampling study examines how state interoceptive attention and state emotional experience are related in everyday life, providing the first data to our knowledge examining: (1) within-subject fluctuations in interoceptive attention across domains, and (2) the relationship between trait and state interoception. Compared with rates of exteroceptive attention (auditory attention: engaged 83% of the time), interoceptive signals captured attention approximately 20% of the time, with substantial within- and between-person variability across domains. There were relationships between interoceptive attention and emotion in daily life (greater attention being associated with more negative valence and fatigue) that were specific to interoceptive attention (different patterns were observed with exteroceptive attention). State measures of interoceptive (but not exteroceptive) attention were correlated with the trait interoceptive attention, but not accuracy. Results underscore the relationship between interoceptive attention and emotion, providing new insights into interoceptive attention and the structure of interoceptive ability. Future research should examine the source(s) of within- and between-person variability in interoceptive and exteroceptive attention and its relationship with emotional experience. This article is part of the theme issue 'Sensing and feeling: an integrative approach to sensory processing and emotional experience'.

Endogenous Control and Reward-based Mechanisms Shape Infants' Attention Biases to Caregiver Faces.

Infants rely on developing attention skills to identify relevant stimuli in their environments. Although caregivers are socially rewarding and a critical source of information, they are also one of many stimuli that compete for infants' attention. Young infants preferentially hold attention on caregiver faces, but it is unknown whether they also preferentially orient to caregivers and the extent to which these attention biases reflect reward-based attention mechanisms. To address these questions, we measured 4- to 10-month-old infants' (N = 64) frequency of orienting and duration of looking to caregiver and stranger faces within multi-item arrays. We also assessed whether infants' attention to these faces related to individual differences in Surgency, an indirect index of reward sensitivity. Although infants did not show biased attention to caregiver versus stranger faces at the group level, infants were increasingly biased to orient to stranger faces with age and infants with higher Surgency scores showed more robust attention orienting and attention holding biases to caregiver faces. These effects varied based on the selective attention demands of the task, suggesting that infants' attention biases to caregiver faces may reflect both developing attention control skills and reward-based attention mechanisms.

[Effects of Shugan Tiaoshen intradermal needling intervention on attentional networks in subthreshold depression: a randomized controlled trial].

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the effects of Shugan Tiaoshen (regulating liver and harmonizing spirit) intradermal needling protocol on the attentional networks of patients with subthreshold depression using the attention network test (ANT). METHODS: Eighty patients with subthreshold depression were randomly divided into an intradermal needling group (40 cases) and a sham needling group (40 cases, 2 cases dropped out), with an additional 43 healthy subjects as a normal group. The intradermal needling group received intradermal needling treatment, while the sham needling group received sham intradermal needling, with the needle tip not penetrating the skin. The bilateral Xinshu (BL 15), Ganshu (BL 18), Shentang (BL 44) as well as auricular points Xin (CO15) and Gan (CO12) were selected alternately. Treatments were administered twice a week for a total of 6 weeks in the two groups. The patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7) scores were observed before treatment, after 3 weeks of treatment, after treatment, and at 1 month after the end of treatment (follow-up), and the ANT of the two groups of patients with subthreshold depression before and after treatment as well as the normal group of healthy subjects was compared. RESULTS: The PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores of the patients with subthreshold depression were decreased after 3 weeks of treatment, after treatment, and in follow-up in the two groups (P<0.05), the differences in PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores before and after treatment were greater in the intradermal needling group than those in the sham needling group (P<0.01). Before treatment, the executive control network reaction time of the subthreshold depression group (the intradermal needling group and the sham needling group) was higher than that of the normal group (P<0.05). Compared before treatment, the executive control network reaction time of the patients in the intradermal needling group and the sham needling group was decreased after treatment (P<0.05), and the alerting network reaction time of the intradermal needling group was increased after treatment (P<0.05); the difference in alerting network reaction time before and after treatment was greater in the intradermal needling group than that of the sham needling group (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Regulating liver and harmonizing spirit intradermal needling protocol could effectively improve depressive and anxious symptoms in patients with subthreshold depression, and enhance the efficiency of the alerting network.

A prospective multi-center study quantifying visual inattention in delirium using generative models of the visual processing stream.

The visual attentional deficits in delirium are poorly characterized. Studies have highlighted neuro-anatomical abnormalities in the visual processing stream but fail at quantifying these abnormalities at a functional level. To identify these deficits, we undertook a multi-center eye-tracking study where we recorded 210 sessions from 42 patients using a novel eye-tracking system that was made specifically for free-viewing in the (ICU); each session lasted 10 min and was labeled with the delirium status of the patient using the Confusion Assessment Method in ICU (CAM-ICU). To analyze this data, we formulate the task of visual attention as a hierarchical generative process that yields a probabilistic distribution of the location of the next fixation. This distribution can then be compared to the measured patient fixation producing a correctness score which is tallied compared across delirium status. This analysis demonstrated that the visual processing system of patients suffering from delirium is functionally restricted to a statistically significant degree. This is the first study to explore the potential mechanisms underpinning visual inattention in delirium and suggests a new target of future research into a disease process that affects one in four hospitalized patients with severe short and long-term consequences.

Early attentional processing and cortical remapping strategies of tactile stimuli in adults with an early and late-onset visual impairment: A cross-sectional study.

Neuroplastic changes appear in people with visual impairment (VI) and they show greater tactile abilities. Improvements in performance could be associated with the development of enhanced early attentional processes based on neuroplasticity. Currently, the various early attentional and cortical remapping strategies that are utilized by people with early (EB) and late-onset blindness (LB) remain unclear. Thus, more research is required to develop effective rehabilitation programs and substitution devices. Our objective was to explore the differences in spatial tactile brain processing in adults with EB, LB and a sighted control group (CG). In this cross-sectional study 27 participants with VI were categorized into EB (n = 14) and LB (n = 13) groups. They were then compared with a CG (n = 15). A vibrotactile device and event-related potentials (ERPs) were utilized while participants performed a spatial tactile line recognition task. The P100 latency and cortical areas of maximal activity were analyzed during the task. The three groups had no statistical differences in P100 latency (p>0.05). All subjects showed significant activation in the right superior frontal areas. Only individuals with VI activated the left superior frontal regions. In EB subjects, a higher activation was found in the mid-frontal and occipital areas. A higher activation of the mid-frontal, anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal zones was observed in LB participants. Compared to the CG, LB individuals showed greater activity in the left orbitofrontal zone, while EB exhibited greater activity in the right superior parietal cortex. The EB had greater activity in the left orbitofrontal region compared to the LB. People with VI may not have faster early attentional processing. EB subjects activate the occipital lobe and right superior parietal cortex during tactile stimulation because of an early lack of visual stimuli and a multimodal information processing. In individuals with LB and EB the orbitofrontal area is activated, suggesting greater emotional processing.

Peculiarities of students' mental functions development under the influence of different physical activities.

OBJECTIVE: Aim: The aim is to study the influence of the training activities of different orientations on the attention development of student specializing in different sports. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Materials and Methods: The study involved 127 students, who were divided into three groups: group A (n=68) was engaged in speed and power sports, group B (n=59) was engaged in endurance sports, the control group (n=83) included peer students who did not do sports during their studies. The research on students' attention was carried out according to Anfimov's test using a table with letters. RESULTS: Results: It was revealed that speed and power activities increase the integrated indicator of attention (the coefficient of work performance) based only on the speed of viewing characters with unreliable changes in the correctness of the work indicators. Under the influence of endurance training, the coefficient of efficiency is increased based on both an increase in the speed of viewing characters and the correctness of the work indicators. The students of the control group were found to have insignificant changes in the studied indicators of attention. CONCLUSION: Conclusions: This suggests that endurance training promotes the development of students' attention more ef f ectively. It is set, that specifics of the training process, its orientation equally specifically specialize the peculiarities of the attention development of students.

Do the effects last? A comparison between internal and external focus of attention instructions on golf putting accuracy over multiple days.

Background: The role of attentional focus is a well-explored topic in exercise sciences. Studies generally indicate that external focus (EF) enhances motor performance and learning compared with internal focus (IF). However, most studies only included one or two experimental days which limits participants' exposure to the focus conditions. This raises the question of whether the superiority of EF varies over time. Methods: Accordingly, in this pre-registered within-subject study, we examined the effects of focus instructions on golf-putting performance over four days, with 48-72 h between them. On each day, participants performed 15 putts under three instructional conditions: (1) EF, (2) IF, and (3) control, in a randomized and counterbalanced order. Results: We observed trivial differences in performance between conditions but considerable improvements from day 1 to day 4. When using an exploratory analysis, we found that participants performed better under EF and control conditions compared with the IF condition on day 1, but not on subsequent days. Conclusions: Since IF instructions are more commonly used in practice, we speculate that the two other focus conditions were experienced as more novel, potentially accounting for their superiority on Day 1. Nevertheless, our results question the significance of employing EF to enhance performance.

Co-learning companionship benefits word learning in a new language: Evidence from a dual-brain EEG examination.

Companionship refers to one's being in the presence of another individual. For adults, acquiring a new language is a highly social activity that often involves learning in the context of companionship. However, the effects of companionship on new language learning have gone relatively underexplored, particularly with respect to word learning. Using a within-subject design, the current study employs electroencephalography to examine how two types of companionship (monitored and co-learning) affect word learning (semantic and lexical) in a new language. Dyads of Chinese speakers of English as a second language participated in a pseudo-word-learning task during which they were placed in monitored and co-learning companionship contexts. The results showed that exposure to co-learning companionship affected the early attention stage of word learning. Moreover, in this early stage, evidence of a higher representation similarity between co-learners showed additional support that co-learning companionship influenced attention. Observed increases in delta and theta interbrain synchronization further revealed that co-learning companionship facilitated semantic access. In all, the similar neural representations and interbrain synchronization between co-learners suggest that co-learning companionship offers important benefits for learning words in a new language.

Perceptual decoupling in the sustained attention to response task is unlikely.

Researchers dispute the cause of errors in high Go, low No Go target detection tasks, like the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART). Some researchers propose errors in the SART are due to perceptual decoupling, where a participant is unaware of stimulus identity. This lack of external awareness causes an erroneous response. Other researchers suggest the majority of the errors in the SART are instead due to response leniency, not perceptual decoupling. Response delays may enable a participant who is initially unaware of stimulus identity, perceptually decoupled, to become aware of stimulus identity, or perceptually recoupled. If, however, the stimulus presentation time is shortened to the minimum necessary for stimulus recognition and the stimulus is disrupted with a structured mask, then there should be no time to enable perception to recouple even with a response delay. From the perceptual decoupling perspective, there should be no impact of a response delay on performance in this case. Alternatively if response bias is critical, then even in this case a response delay may impact performance. In this study, we shortened stimulus presentation time and added a structured mask. We examined whether a response delay impacted performance in the SART and tasks where the SART's response format was reversed. We expected a response delay would only impact signal detection theory bias, c, in the SART, where response leniency is an issue. In the reverse formatted SART, since bias was not expected to be lenient, we expected no impact or minimal impact of a response delay on response bias. These predictions were verified. Response bias is more critical in understanding SART performance, than perceptual decoupling, which is rare if it occurs at all in the SART.

Measuring attentional selection of object categories using hierarchical frequency tagging.

In the present study, we used Hierarchical Frequency Tagging (Gordon et al., 2017) to investigate in electroencephalography how different levels of the neural processing hierarchy interact with category-selective attention during visual object recognition. We constructed stimulus sequences of cyclic wavelet scrambled face and house stimuli at two different frequencies (f1 = 0.8 Hz and f2 = 1 Hz). For each trial, two stimulus sequences of different frequencies were superimposed and additionally augmented by a sinusoidal contrast modulation with f3 = 12.5 Hz. This allowed us to simultaneously assess higher level processing using semantic wavelet-induced frequency-tagging (SWIFT) and processing in earlier visual levels using steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs), along with their intermodulation (IM) components. To investigate the category specificity of the SWIFT signal, we manipulated the category congruence between target and distractor by superimposing two sequences containing stimuli from the same or different object categories. Participants attended to one stimulus (target) and ignored the other (distractor). Our results showed successful tagging of different levels of the cortical hierarchy. Using linear mixed-effects modeling, we detected different attentional modulation effects on lower versus higher processing levels. SWIFT and IM components were substantially increased for target versus distractor stimuli, reflecting attentional selection of the target stimuli. In addition, distractor stimuli from the same category as targets elicited stronger SWIFT signals than distractor stimuli from a different category indicating category-selective attention. In contrast, for IM components, this category-selective attention effect was largely absent, indicating that IM components probably reflect more stimulus-specific processing.

[Application of the Trail Making Test in the schizophrenia research]. / A Trail Making Teszt alkalmazása a szkizofrénia-kutatásban.

Even the Kraepelinian concept of dementia praecox suggests a link between schizophrenia and various cognitive deficits. Although cognitive impairment is not a fundamental symptom of schizophrenia, it is considered to be one of the basic features of the disease. The deficit can affect a number of cognitive domains and is most often specific. One of the most pronounced cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia is impairment in attentional and executive functions. The Trail Making Test (TMT) is a screening test commonly used in the clinic that is very sensitive to impairments in attention and executive functions. The aim of the present study is to summarise the research conducted in the last five years in which the Trail Making Test has been used to screen schizophrenics. A search was conducted in the PubMed database using the keywords "schizophrenia" and "Trail Making Test". A total of 43 relevant studies have been published on this topic since 2018. A review of the research on this topic shows that the TMT can be used to identify cognitive deficits in schizophrenics, affecting executive functions and attention. It also shows that schizophrenic patients performed significantly worse on the test than healthy individuals.

Investigating the crowding effect on letters and symbols in deaf adults.

Reading requires the transformation of a complex array of visual features into sounds and meaning. For deaf signers who experience changes in visual attention and have little or no access to the sounds of the language they read, understanding the visual constraints underlying reading is crucial. This study aims to explore a fundamental aspect of visual perception intertwined with reading: the crowding effect. This effect manifests as the struggle to distinguish a target letter when surrounded by flanker letters. Through a two-alternative forced choice task, we assessed the recognition of letters and symbols presented in isolation or flanked by two or four characters, positioned either to the left or right of fixation. Our findings reveal that while deaf individuals exhibit higher accuracy in processing letters compared to symbols, their performance falls short of that of their hearing counterparts. Interestingly, despite their proficiency with letters, deaf individuals didn't demonstrate quicker letter identification, particularly in the most challenging scenario where letters were flanked by four characters. These outcomes imply the development of a specialized letter processing system among deaf individuals, albeit one that may subtly diverge from that of their hearing counterparts.

Inter-individual variability in neural response to low doses of LSD.

The repeated use of small doses of psychedelics (also referred to as "microdosing") to facilitate benefits in mental health, cognition, and mood is a trending practice. Placebo-controlled studies however have largely failed to demonstrate strong benefits, possibly because of large inter-individual response variability. The current study tested the hypothesis that effects of low doses of LSD on arousal, attention and memory depend on an individual's cognitive state at baseline. Healthy participants (N = 53) were randomly assigned to receive repeated doses of LSD (15 mcg) or placebo on 4 occasions divided over 2 weeks. Each treatment condition also consisted of a baseline and a 1-week follow-up visit. Neurophysiological measures of arousal (resting state EEG), pre-attentive processing (auditory oddball task), and perceptual learning and memory (visual long-term potentiation (LTP) paradigm) were assessed at baseline, dosing session 1 and 4, and follow-up. LSD produced stimulatory effects as reflected by a reduction in resting state EEG delta, theta, and alpha power, and enhanced pre-attentive processing during the acute dosing sessions. LSD also blunted the induction of LTP on dosing session 4. Stimulatory effects of LSD were strongest in individuals with low arousal and attention at baseline, while inhibitory effects were strongest in high memory performers at baseline. Decrements in delta EEG power and enhanced pre-attentive processing in the LSD treatment condition were still present during the 1-week follow-up. The current study demonstrates across three cognitive domains, that acute responses to low doses of LSD depend on the baseline state and provides some support for LSD induced neuroadaptations that sustain beyond treatment.

Threat-induced prosocial behavior: enhanced exogenous attention to protect others from harm.

As social animals, humans tend to voluntarily engage in pro-social behavior to prevent harm to others. However, to what extent prosocial behavior can be reflected at the level of less voluntary cognitive processes remains unclear. Here, we examined how threat to others modulates exogenous attention. Fifty-four participants performed an exogenous spatial cueing task where the participant's performance determined whether electric shocks would be delivered either to themselves or to their anonymous co-participant. Threat of shock to the co-participant elicited orienting and reorienting responses that were faster than in the safe condition and did not differ from performance when participants avoided shocks to themselves. This attentional improvement was not due to speed-accuracy trade off and was associated with arousal, i.e., increased pupil dilation in both threat conditions. Together, these findings suggest that pro-social behavior triggers automatic attentional processes which may be relevant for providing immediate help without relying on reflexive processes.

High baseline perivascular space volume in basal ganglia is associated with attention and executive function decline in Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND: Pathologic perivascular spaces (PVS), the fluid-filled compartments surrounding brain vasculature, may underlie cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, whether this impacts specific cognitive domains has not been investigated. OBJECTIVES: This study examined the relationship of PVS volume at baseline with domain-specific and global cognitive change over 2 years in PD individuals. METHODS: A total of 39 individuals with PD underwent 3T T1w magnetic resonance imaging to determine PVS volume fraction (PVS volume normalized to total regional volume) within (i) centrum semiovale, (ii) prefrontal white matter (medial orbitofrontal, rostral middle frontal, and superior frontal), and (iii) basal ganglia. A neuropsychological battery included assessment of cognitive domains and global cognitive function at baseline and after 2 years. RESULTS: Higher basal ganglia PVS at baseline was associated with greater decline in attention, executive function, and global cognition scores. CONCLUSIONS: While previous reports have associated elevated PVS volume in the basal ganglia with decline in global cognition in PD, our findings show such decline may affect the attention and executive function domains.

Temporal-spatial cross attention network for recognizing imagined characters.

Previous research has primarily employed deep learning models such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) for decoding imagined character signals. These approaches have treated the temporal and spatial features of the signals in a sequential, parallel, or single-feature manner. However, there has been limited research on the cross-relationships between temporal and spatial features, despite the inherent association between channels and sampling points in Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) signal acquisition, which holds significant information about brain activity. To address the limited research on the relationships between temporal and spatial features, we proposed a Temporal-Spatial Cross-Attention Network model, named TSCA-Net. The TSCA-Net is comprised of four modules: the Temporal Feature (TF), the Spatial Feature (SF), the Temporal-Spatial Cross (TSCross), and the Classifier. The TF combines LSTM and Transformer to extract temporal features from BCI signals, while the SF captures spatial features. The TSCross is introduced to learn the correlations between the temporal and spatial features. The Classifier predicts the label of BCI data based on its characteristics. We validated the TSCA-Net model using publicly available datasets of handwritten characters, which recorded the spiking activity from two micro-electrode arrays (MEAs). The results showed that our proposed TSCA-Net outperformed other comparison models (EEG-Net, EEG-TCNet, S3T, GRU, LSTM, R-Transformer, and ViT) in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, achieving 92.66 % , 92.77 % , 92.70 % , and 92.58 % , respectively. The TSCA-Net model demonstrated a 3.65 % to 7.49 % improvement in accuracy over the comparison models.

Aperiodic component of EEG power spectrum and cognitive performance are modulated by education in aging.

Recent studies have shown a growing interest in the so-called "aperiodic" component of the EEG power spectrum, which describes the overall trend of the whole spectrum with a linear or exponential function. In the field of brain aging, this aperiodic component is associated both with age-related changes and performance on cognitive tasks. This study aims to elucidate the potential role of education in moderating the relationship between resting-state EEG features (including aperiodic component) and cognitive performance in aging. N = 179 healthy participants of the "Leipzig Study for Mind-Body-Emotion Interactions" (LEMON) dataset were divided into three groups based on age and education. Older adults exhibited lower exponent, offset (i.e. measures of aperiodic component), and Individual Alpha Peak Frequency (IAPF) as compared to younger adults. Moreover, visual attention and working memory were differently associated with the aperiodic component depending on education: in older adults with high education, higher exponent predicted slower processing speed and less working memory capacity, while an opposite trend was found in those with low education. While further investigation is needed, this study shows the potential modulatory role of education in the relationship between the aperiodic component of the EEG power spectrum and aging cognition.