Abstract
The problem of revealing age-related distinctions in multichannel electroencephalograms (EEGs) during the execution of motor tasks in young and elderly adults is addressed herein. Based on the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), differences in long-range correlations are considered, emphasizing changes in the scaling exponent . Stronger responses in elderly subjects are confirmed, including the range and rate of increase in . Unlike elderly subjects, young adults demonstrated about 2.5 times more pronounced differences between motor task responses with the dominant and non-dominant hand. Knowledge of age-related changes in brain electrical activity is important for understanding consequences of healthy aging and distinguishing them from pathological changes associated with brain diseases. Besides diagnosing age-related effects, the potential of DFA can also be used in the field of brain–computer interfaces.
Highlights
Aging causes changes in the human life, which often include physical and mental impairments, psychological, and social changes
For every individual motor task, we consider a grows of α in normalized units, starting with α = 1.0 for both movements—clenching and unclenching a fist, and we carry out a double averaging: over repetitive tasks for an individual participant and for the whole group
We found that elderly subjects demonstrated a stronger increase in detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) scaling exponent during motor tasks, which can be interpreted as more pronounced changes in long-range correlations associated with the transition to “smoother” datasets during the initial parts of EEG data after beginning the hand clenching/unclenching
Summary
Aging causes changes in the human life, which often include physical and mental impairments, psychological, and social changes. Research on aging is commonly associated with abnormal brain dynamics and the related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The physiological mechanisms accompanying the development of these disorders of brain activity have been clearly established [1,2,3,4,5], but some features of pathological dynamics are revealed even in healthy aging [6], and their analysis can provide markers of hidden stages of disorders. Healthy aging alters the neurochemical and structural properties of the brain, that leads to decreased cognitive and motor functions during daily activities in older adults. Some studies [12,13,14,15] have established additional brain areas involved during the motor activity with aging to overcome structural changes in brain dynamics
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