Aging of stimulus-driven and goal-directed attentional processes in young immigrants with long-term high altitude exposure in Tibet: An ERP study

Hailin Ma,Delong Zhang,Huifang Ma,Xiaoyan Huang,Ming Liu

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-34706-y

Hailin Ma, Delong Zhang + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34706-y

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Abstract

High altitude (HA) exposure reduces the behavioral response to visual attention and the neural basis is still largely unclear. The present study explored the stimulus-driven and goal-directed factors that are hidden within this attentional behavior impairment via a visual search paradigm in young immigrants in Tibet by recording event-related potential (ERPs). We found that HA explosure significantly slowed the stimulus-driven behaviors instead of the goal-directed behaviors. Furthermore, the P1, N1, and P3 amplitudes collectively indicated the poor efficiency of entire attention behaviors, in which the P3 magnitude of resources allocation was negatively correlated with the attentional behavior response. And the P3 scalp distribution suggested a compensation for insufficient resources of sensory processing only in the goal-directed behaviors. Together, the present study made the point on how stimulus-driven and goal-directed attentional behaviors changed as a result of chronic HA environment exposure, which is similar to aging.

Highlights

Many studies have indicated behavioral changes under the High altitude (HA) environment, especially motor deterioration and reaction slowness[1,2,3,4]
The departure point for this study was to explore the performance of the two attentional processes following impaired visual attention behavior in healthy young immigrants under the HA environment in Tibet
We found the difference of RTs in the stimulus-driven attention between groups, longer RTs in the HA group

Summary

Introduction

Many studies have indicated behavioral changes under the HA environment, especially motor deterioration and reaction slowness[1,2,3,4]. To better observe the changes of two attention processes under the HA environment, we would use ERPs as a measure owing to their preeminent temporal resolution and topography of ongoing neural activity of behaviors and their sensitivity to reveal processes that are not overt in behavior[40] For those details that two attention processes evoked an early P1 and N1 component[41,42,43,44] and the goal-directed attention generated a typically larger N1 component and more decreased P3 component than the stimulus-driven attention[21,26,45], we used the P1, N1 and P3 components to measure this task systematically that was practised on participants containing young inhabitants in the LA area and those who were born and grew up in sea level areas but migrated to Tibet for a relatively long period. We hypothesized that two attention processes have poor performance in young immigrants in Tibet which can be indexed by changes of the ERP component

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