Age differences in the recruitment of widespread neural networks: Implications for distractibility
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1
University of Toronto, Department of Psychology, Canada
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2
Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Canada
The present study used fMRI to examine age differences in brain activity during encoding in a distraction-laden task. Older and younger adults were shown a rapid stream of letter strings (words and nonwords) superimposed on objects and were asked to perform a 1-back task on either the letters or the objects. On a subsequent word fragment completion task, older adults showed more priming for the distracting words than younger adults. Furthermore, greater priming in the older group was associated with an inability to suppress activity in an area of the rostral prefrontal cortex (PFC) previously implicated in the default mode network. Younger adults, on the other hand, recruited a more lateral region of the rostral PFC, an area thought to be part of a frontal-parietal control network. Further functional connectivity analyses confirmed that these rostral regions were indeed distinct, with the older adults’ more medial area being functionally connected to other default regions and the younger adults’ more lateral area being connected to other control regions. These results suggest that older adults’ lessened attentional control is due to a failure to suppress the frontal nodes of the default network and to simultaneously engage frontal nodes of the control network.
Conference:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes, Toronto, Canada, 22 Mar - 26 Mar, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Aging
Citation:
Campbell
KL,
Grady
CL and
Hasher
L
(2010). Age differences in the recruitment of widespread neural networks: Implications for distractibility.
Conference Abstract:
The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.14.00105
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Received:
29 Jun 2010;
Published Online:
29 Jun 2010.
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Correspondence:
K. L Campbell, University of Toronto, Department of Psychology, Toronto, Canada, k.campbell@utoronto.ca