Age related effects on working memory: event-related potential differences between high and low performing old and young adults

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Age related effects on working memory: event-related potential differences between high and low performing old and young adults Emi Saliasi1*, Linda Geerligs2, Monicque M. Lorist2 and Natasha M. Maurits3 1 University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands 2 Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen, Netherlands 3 Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands Most studies on age-related changes in cognition focused on differences between groups of young and old adults and did not study variability within groups. However, some old adults show lower performance during cognitive tasks, others achieve performance comparable to young adults. To examine whether age-related effects on behavioral and event related potential (ERP) measures depend on performance level, we recorded an electroencephalogram from 37 young (18-26 years) and 36 old (60-74 years) healthy adults, during an n-back task with two loads (0- and 1-back) and two versions (identity and integrated). Participants were split in high and low performers. As expected, we found that high performing elderly (HPE) were faster and more accurate than low performing elderly (LPE). This variability in performance was reflected in higher P3 amplitude for high performing young, followed by low performing young, LPE and the lowest P3 amplitude for HPE. Moreover, brain activity in elderly was characterized by frontal hyperactivity and parietal hypoactivity, lasting from 100 ms until 900 ms post-stimulus. Other ERP differences related to task load and version, age and performance level, started at early visual encoding stages and persisted. We thus found that age related effects on ERP measures differed between high and low performers. The frontal hyperactivity and lower P3 amplitude might indicate that elderly perceive the task as more demanding and engage more effort to maintain performance. In HPE this indeed resulted in adequate performance levels. Although LPE also devoted effort to the task as reflected in the ERP results, this did not improve their performance. These results might suggest that the elderly differ in efficiency with which age related decline can be compensated. Keywords: Aging, ERP Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Cognitive Aging Citation: Saliasi E, Geerligs L, Lorist MM and Maurits NM (2011). Age related effects on working memory: event-related potential differences between high and low performing old and young adults. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00615 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Emi Saliasi, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands, e.saliasi@neuro.umcg.nl Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Emi Saliasi Linda Geerligs Monicque M Lorist Natasha M Maurits Google Emi Saliasi Linda Geerligs Monicque M Lorist Natasha M Maurits Google Scholar Emi Saliasi Linda Geerligs Monicque M Lorist Natasha M Maurits PubMed Emi Saliasi Linda Geerligs Monicque M Lorist Natasha M Maurits Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.