Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performance
Advancing age affects both cognitive performance and functional brain activity and interpretation of these effects has led to a variety of conceptual research models without always explicitly linking the two effects. However, to best understand the multifaceted effects of advancing age, age differen...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2014-03-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnagi.2014.00046/full |
| _version_ | 1818561298880790528 |
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| author | Jason eSteffener Jason eSteffener Daniel eBarulli Daniel eBarulli Christian eHabeck Christian eHabeck Yaakov eStern Yaakov eStern Yaakov eStern |
| author_facet | Jason eSteffener Jason eSteffener Daniel eBarulli Daniel eBarulli Christian eHabeck Christian eHabeck Yaakov eStern Yaakov eStern Yaakov eStern |
| author_sort | Jason eSteffener |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Advancing age affects both cognitive performance and functional brain activity and interpretation of these effects has led to a variety of conceptual research models without always explicitly linking the two effects. However, to best understand the multifaceted effects of advancing age, age differences in functional brain activity need to be explicitly tied to the cognitive task performance. This work hypothesized that age-related differences in task performance are partially explained by age-related differences in functional brain activity and formally tested these causal relationships. Functional MRI data was from groups of young and old adults engaged in an executive task-switching experiment. Analyses were voxel-wise testing of moderated-mediation and simple mediation statistical path models to determine whether age group, brain activity and their interaction explained task performance in regions demonstrating an effect of age group. Results identified brain regions whose age-related differences in functional brain activity significantly explained age-related differences in task performance. In all identified locations, significant moderated-mediation relationships resulted from increasing brain activity predicting worse (slower) task performance in older but not younger adults. Findings suggest that advancing age links task performance to the level of brain activity. The overall message of this work is that in order to understand the role of functional brain activity on cognitive performance, analysis methods should respect theoretical relationships. Namely, that age affects brain activity and brain activity is related to task performance. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T00:49:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a06ea0c52641488cbe9bf5320ddaa39f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1663-4365 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T00:49:02Z |
| publishDate | 2014-03-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-a06ea0c52641488cbe9bf5320ddaa39f2022-12-21T23:23:58ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience1663-43652014-03-01610.3389/fnagi.2014.0004676081Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performanceJason eSteffener0Jason eSteffener1Daniel eBarulli2Daniel eBarulli3Christian eHabeck4Christian eHabeck5Yaakov eStern6Yaakov eStern7Yaakov eStern8Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia UniversityAdvancing age affects both cognitive performance and functional brain activity and interpretation of these effects has led to a variety of conceptual research models without always explicitly linking the two effects. However, to best understand the multifaceted effects of advancing age, age differences in functional brain activity need to be explicitly tied to the cognitive task performance. This work hypothesized that age-related differences in task performance are partially explained by age-related differences in functional brain activity and formally tested these causal relationships. Functional MRI data was from groups of young and old adults engaged in an executive task-switching experiment. Analyses were voxel-wise testing of moderated-mediation and simple mediation statistical path models to determine whether age group, brain activity and their interaction explained task performance in regions demonstrating an effect of age group. Results identified brain regions whose age-related differences in functional brain activity significantly explained age-related differences in task performance. In all identified locations, significant moderated-mediation relationships resulted from increasing brain activity predicting worse (slower) task performance in older but not younger adults. Findings suggest that advancing age links task performance to the level of brain activity. The overall message of this work is that in order to understand the role of functional brain activity on cognitive performance, analysis methods should respect theoretical relationships. Namely, that age affects brain activity and brain activity is related to task performance.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnagi.2014.00046/fullcognitive agingMediationPath analysisfunctional brain activitymoderated-mediationtask-switching. |
| spellingShingle | Jason eSteffener Jason eSteffener Daniel eBarulli Daniel eBarulli Christian eHabeck Christian eHabeck Yaakov eStern Yaakov eStern Yaakov eStern Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performance Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience cognitive aging Mediation Path analysis functional brain activity moderated-mediation task-switching. |
| title | Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performance |
| title_full | Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performance |
| title_fullStr | Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performance |
| title_short | Neuroimaging explanations of age-related differences in task performance |
| title_sort | neuroimaging explanations of age related differences in task performance |
| topic | cognitive aging Mediation Path analysis functional brain activity moderated-mediation task-switching. |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnagi.2014.00046/full |
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