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Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to examine task-related changes in prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity during a dual-task in both healthy young and older adults and compare patterns of activation between the age groups. We also sought to determine whether brain activation during a dual-task r...

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Autores principales: Ohsugi, Hironori, Ohgi, Shohei, Shigemori, Kenta, Schneider, Eric B
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3552708/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23327197
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-14-10
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author Ohsugi, Hironori
Ohgi, Shohei
Shigemori, Kenta
Schneider, Eric B
author_facet Ohsugi, Hironori
Ohgi, Shohei
Shigemori, Kenta
Schneider, Eric B
author_sort Ohsugi, Hironori
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to examine task-related changes in prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity during a dual-task in both healthy young and older adults and compare patterns of activation between the age groups. We also sought to determine whether brain activation during a dual-task relates to executive/attentional function and how measured factors associated with both of these functions vary between older and younger adults. RESULTS: Thirty-five healthy volunteers (20 young and 15 elderly) participated in this study. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was employed to measure PFC activation during a single-task (performing calculations or stepping) and dual-task (performing both single-tasks at once). Cognitive function was assessed in the older patients with the Trail-making test part B (TMT-B). Major outcomes were task performance, brain activation during task (oxygenated haemoglobin: Oxy-Hb) measured by NIRS, and TMT-B score. Mixed ANOVAs were used to compare task factors and age groups in task performance. Mixed ANOVAs also compared task factors, age group and time factors in task-induced changes in measured Oxy-Hb. Among the older participants, correlations between the TMT-B score and Oxy-Hb values measured in each single-task and in the dual-task were examined using a Pearson correlation coefficient. Oxy-Hb values were significantly increased in both the calculation task and the dual-task within patients in both age groups. However, the Oxy-Hb values associated with there were higher in the older group during the post-task period for the dual-task. Also, there were significant negative correlations between both task-performance accuracy and Oxy-Hb values during the dual-task and participant TMT-B scores. CONCLUSIONS: Older adults demonstrated age-specific PFC activation in response to dual-task challenge. There was also a significant negative correlation between PFC activation during dual-task and executive/attentional function. These findings suggest that the high cognitive load induced by dual-task activity generates increased PFC activity in older adults. However, this relationship appeared to be strongest in participants with better baseline attention and executive functions.
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spelling pubmed-35527082013-01-28 Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults Ohsugi, Hironori Ohgi, Shohei Shigemori, Kenta Schneider, Eric B BMC Neurosci Research Article BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to examine task-related changes in prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity during a dual-task in both healthy young and older adults and compare patterns of activation between the age groups. We also sought to determine whether brain activation during a dual-task relates to executive/attentional function and how measured factors associated with both of these functions vary between older and younger adults. RESULTS: Thirty-five healthy volunteers (20 young and 15 elderly) participated in this study. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was employed to measure PFC activation during a single-task (performing calculations or stepping) and dual-task (performing both single-tasks at once). Cognitive function was assessed in the older patients with the Trail-making test part B (TMT-B). Major outcomes were task performance, brain activation during task (oxygenated haemoglobin: Oxy-Hb) measured by NIRS, and TMT-B score. Mixed ANOVAs were used to compare task factors and age groups in task performance. Mixed ANOVAs also compared task factors, age group and time factors in task-induced changes in measured Oxy-Hb. Among the older participants, correlations between the TMT-B score and Oxy-Hb values measured in each single-task and in the dual-task were examined using a Pearson correlation coefficient. Oxy-Hb values were significantly increased in both the calculation task and the dual-task within patients in both age groups. However, the Oxy-Hb values associated with there were higher in the older group during the post-task period for the dual-task. Also, there were significant negative correlations between both task-performance accuracy and Oxy-Hb values during the dual-task and participant TMT-B scores. CONCLUSIONS: Older adults demonstrated age-specific PFC activation in response to dual-task challenge. There was also a significant negative correlation between PFC activation during dual-task and executive/attentional function. These findings suggest that the high cognitive load induced by dual-task activity generates increased PFC activity in older adults. However, this relationship appeared to be strongest in participants with better baseline attention and executive functions. BioMed Central 2013-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3552708/ /pubmed/23327197 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-14-10 Text en Copyright ©2013 Ohsugi et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ohsugi, Hironori
Ohgi, Shohei
Shigemori, Kenta
Schneider, Eric B
Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults
title Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults
title_full Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults
title_fullStr Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults
title_full_unstemmed Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults
title_short Differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults
title_sort differences in dual-task performance and prefrontal cortex activation between younger and older adults
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3552708/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23327197
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-14-10
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