Age-differences in brain correlates of attentional control of emotional items during working memory encoding.

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Age-differences in brain correlates of attentional control of emotional items during working memory encoding. Maryam Ziaei1*, Nathalie Peira2 and Jonas Persson3, 4 1 The University of Queensland, Australia 2 Uppsala University, Sweden 3 Ageing Research Center, Sweden 4 Stockholm University, Sweden The "Positivity effect" refers to the attentional and memory bias favouring positive over negative items as is common in late adulthood. The underlying neural mechanism of how attentional systems bias encoding of positive items is not fully clear. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying attention to emotional items using an emotional working memory paradigm. Using fMRI, thirteen healthy older (55-65-year old) and 14 younger adults (18-22-year old) were scanned during a working memory task in which participants were instructed to attend to either positive or negative targets, and ignoring concurrent emotional or neutral irrelevant distractors. Participants' working memory performances were measured at the end of each trial. Behavioral results showed an overall reduction in memory performance among older adults compared to younger adults. Whole brain results revealed significant increased activity for positive compared to negative targets in a temporal pole region among older adults, whereas younger adults recruited default mode network regions including left inferior parietal lobe, caudate, mid-cingulate, and precuneus more for negative compared to positive items. This different pattern of activity in response to positive and negative stimuli might suggest the neural correspondence of positivity effect observed with aging. Moreover, in response to emotional compare to neutral distractors, anterior cingulate and medial frontal gyrus were more activated among older adults whereas greater activity in caudate and hippocampus emerged among younger adults. This could suggest the age-related differences in engaging brain networks in tasks with high demands. The results of this study contribute to the current literature of the positivity effect with advancing age and provide new evidence for age-difference in response to the irrelevant items during encoding of emotional targets. Keywords: attentional control, functional MRI, Emotional Memory, positivity effect, Emotional distractors Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Emotional and Social Processes Citation: Ziaei M, Peira N and Persson J (2015). Age-differences in brain correlates of attentional control of emotional items during working memory encoding.. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00375 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: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Mrs. Maryam Ziaei, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, maryam.ziaei@cai.uq.edu.au 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 Maryam Ziaei Nathalie Peira Jonas Persson Google Maryam Ziaei Nathalie Peira Jonas Persson Google Scholar Maryam Ziaei Nathalie Peira Jonas Persson PubMed Maryam Ziaei Nathalie Peira Jonas Persson 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.