Age-related differences in the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in attentional control

Ruchika Shaurya Prakash; Kirk I Erickson; Stanley J Colcombe; Jennifer S Kim; Michelle W Voss; Arthur F Kramer

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2009.07.005

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Age-related differences in the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in attentional control

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Age-related differences in the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in attentional control

Ruchika Shaurya Prakash, Kirk I Erickson, Stanley J Colcombe, Jennifer S Kim, Michelle W Voss and Arthur F Kramer

Brain and cognition, Vol.71(3), pp.328-335

2009

DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2009.07.005

PMCID: PMC2783271

PMID: 19699019

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Abstract

We investigated the relative involvement of cortical regions supporting attentional control in older and younger adults during performance on a modified version of the Stroop task. Participants were exposed to two different types of incongruent trials. One of these, an incongruent-ineligible condition, produces conflict at the non-response level, while the second, an incongruent-eligible condition, produces conflict at both non-response and response levels of information processing. Greater attentional control is needed to perform the incongruent-eligible condition compared to other conditions. We examined the cortical recruitment associated with this task in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm in 25 older and 25 younger adults. Our results indicated that while younger adults demonstrated an increase in the activation of cortical regions responsible for maintaining attentional control in response to increased levels of conflict, such sensitivity and flexibility of the cortical regions to increased attentional control demands was absent in older adults. These results suggest a limitation in older adults’ capabilities for flexibly recruiting the attentional network in response to increasing attentional demands.

Aging

fMRI

Stroop task

Attentional control

Interference

Inhibition

Neural flexibility

Details

Title: Subtitle: Age-related differences in the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in attentional control
Creators: Ruchika Shaurya Prakash - Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, United States
Kirk I Erickson - Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, United States
Stanley J Colcombe - Department of Psychology, University of Wales, Bangor, United Kingdom
Jennifer S Kim - Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
Michelle W Voss - Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
Arthur F Kramer - Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Brain and cognition, Vol.71(3), pp.328-335
DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2009.07.005
PMID: 19699019
PMCID: PMC2783271
NLM abbreviation: Brain Cogn
ISSN: 0278-2626
eISSN: 1090-2147
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Language: English
Date published: 2009
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984002334902771

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