Abstract
Response inhibition is frequently examined using visual go/no-go tasks. Recently, the auditory go/no-go paradigm has been also applied to several clinical and aging populations. However, age-related changes in the neural underpinnings of auditory go/no-go tasks are yet to be elucidated. We used magnetoencephalography combined with distributed source imaging methods to examine age-associated changes in neural responses to auditory no-go stimuli. Additionally, we compared the performance of high- and low-performing older adults to explore differences in cortical activation. Behavioral performance in terms of response inhibition was similar in younger and older adult groups. Relative to the younger adults, the older adults exhibited reduced cortical activation in the superior and middle temporal gyrus. However, we did not find any significant differences in cortical activation between the high- and low-performing older adults. Our results therefore support the hypothesis that inhibition is reduced during aging. The variation in cognitive performance among older adults confirms the need for further study on the underlying mechanisms of inhibition.
Highlights
Due to the increasing prevalence of ageing populations over the last few decades, the concern about cognitive decline in older adults has increased [1]
Combining the results of grand-averaged source maps and previous research, we identified the following regions of interest (ROIs) as involved in response inhibition: bilateral temporal pole (TP), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), occipitotemporal area (OTA), superior temporal gyrus (STG), middle temporal gyrus (MTG), insula, pre-supplementary motor area/supplementary motor area, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and precuneus (Figure 1)
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Summary
Due to the increasing prevalence of ageing populations over the last few decades, the concern about cognitive decline in older adults has increased [1]. Effective social interaction requires functional prospective memory, naming, and speech production, which may deteriorate in older adults due to defects in inhibitory function [8,9,10,11]. This cognitive decline affects older adults’ well-being and quality of life [12]. Previous electrophysiological studies have reported N2/P3 event-related potentials in the 200–600 ms time window to be the most prominent component revealing the top-down control process in go/no-go tasks [15,16,17].
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