Healthy aging delays scalp EEG sensitivity to noise in a face discrimination task
- 1
Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
- 2
SFC Brain Imaging Research Centre, Division of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK
- 3
McGill Vision Research Unit, Department of Ophthalmology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
- 4
Department of Psychology, Behaviour and Neuroscience, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
We used a single-trial ERP approach to quantify age-related changes in the time-course of noise sensitivity. A total of 62 healthy adults, aged between 19 and 98, performed a non-speeded discrimination task between two faces. Stimulus information was controlled by parametrically manipulating the phase spectrum of these faces. Behavioral 75% correct thresholds increased with age. This result may be explained by lower signal-to-noise ratios in older brains. ERP from each subject were entered into a single-trial general linear regression model to identify variations in neural activity statistically associated with changes in image structure. The fit of the model, indexed by R2, was computed at multiple post-stimulus time points. The time-course of the R2 function showed significantly delayed noise sensitivity in older observers. This age effect is reliable, as demonstrated by test–retest in 24 subjects, and started about 120 ms after stimulus onset. Our analyses suggest also a qualitative change from a young to an older pattern of brain activity at around 47 ± 4 years old.
Keywords:
healthy aging, face processing, vision, noise, single-trials, EEG, ERP
Citation:
Rousselet GA, Gaspar CM, Pernet CR, Husk JS, Bennett PJ and Sekuler AB (2010) Healthy aging delays scalp EEG sensitivity to noise in a face discrimination task. Front. Psychology 1:19. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00019
Received: 12 March 2010;
Paper pending published: 17 April 2010;
Accepted: 18 May 2010;
Published online: 19 July 2010
Edited by:
Paul Sajda, Columbia University, USA
Reviewed by:
Marios Philiastides, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany
Arnaud Delorme, Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, France
Copyright:
© 2010 Rousselet, Gaspar, Pernet, Husk, Bennett and Sekuler. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence:
Guillaume A. Rousselet, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, 58 Hillhead street, Glasgow G12 8QB, UK. e-mail: g.rousselet@psy.gla.ac.uk