Age-related differences in the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in attentional control.
Brain Cogn
; 71(3): 328-35, 2009 Dec.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19699019
ABSTRACT
We investigated the relative involvement of cortical regions supporting attentional control in older and younger adults during performance on a modified version of the Stroop task. Participants were exposed to two different types of incongruent trials. One of these, an incongruent-ineligible condition, produces conflict at the non-response level, while the second, an incongruent-eligible condition, produces conflict at both non-response and response levels of information processing. Greater attentional control is needed to perform the incongruent-eligible condition compared to other conditions. We examined the cortical recruitment associated with this task in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm in 25 older and 25 younger adults. Our results indicated that while younger adults demonstrated an increase in the activation of cortical regions responsible for maintaining attentional control in response to increased levels of conflict, such sensitivity and flexibility of the cortical regions to increased attentional control demands was absent in older adults. These results suggest a limitation in older adults' capabilities for flexibly recruiting the attentional network in response to increasing attentional demands.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Enmascaramiento Perceptual
/
Atención
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Corteza Prefrontal
Límite:
Adolescent
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Adult
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Aged
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Humans
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Middle aged
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Brain Cogn
Año:
2009
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos