Title: Age-Related Changes in Executive Function: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Investigation of Task-Switching
Abstract: ABSTRACT ABSTRACT Older adults have difficulty when executive control must be brought on line to coordinate ongoing behavior. To assess age-related alterations in executive processing, task-switching performance and event-related potential (ERP) activity were compared in young and older adults on switch, post-switch, pre-switch, and no-switch trials, ordered in demand for executive processes from greatest to least. In stimulus-locked averages for young adults, only switch trials elicited fronto-central P3 components, indicative of task-set attentional reallocation, whereas in older adults, three of the four trial types evinced frontal potentials. In response-locked averages, the amplitude of a medial frontal negativity (MFN), a component reflecting conflict monitoring and detection, increased as a function of executive demands in the ERPs of the young but not those of the older adults. These data suggest altered executive processing in older adults resulting in persistent recruitment of prefrontal processes for conditions that do not require them in the young. Keywords: Cognitive agingExecutive controlAttentional resourcesResponse conflictTask switchingERPsMedial frontal negativityP3aP3b ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research reported in this paper was supported by NIA Grants AG05213 and AG09988 and by the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene. We are grateful to Charles L. Brown, III, for computer programming and technical assistance, and to Ms Efrat Schori and Ms Letecia Latif for their assistance in the recruiting and screening of participants. We also thank all volunteers for participating in this experiment.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-12-31
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
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Cited By Count: 67
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