As increasing numbers of Americans are living to advanced ages, understanding what allows individuals to maintain meaningful levels of intellectual functioning and independence has become a major public health concern. The primary goal of the proposed research is to investigate the ways in which information processing of cognitively `successful'older adults differs from that of cognitively less successful ones. Event-related potential (ERP) indices of sensory-perceptual encoding, selective attention, and capacity- limited controlled processing will be measured. This will provide an opportunity to evaluate competing theories about cognitive aging that differ in terms of which information processing operations are hypothesized to be most important to age-related changes in cognition. Our proposal emphasizes novelty processing because increased responsiveness to novelty may not only be a reflection of successful cognitive aging, but also help to promote it. In the proposed study, individuals from 18 to over 90 years old will be divided into cognitively high and cognitively average performers based on age-appropriate neuropsychological test norms. A carefully planned set of ERP experiments will examine the extent to which groups varying in cognitive status differ in age-related changes in novelty processing under conditions that manipulate demands on 1) capacity-limited controlled processing (Aim 1), 2) context-appropriate resource allocation (Aim 2), and 3) selective attention to task-relevant events (Aim 3).
Aim 1 will be addressed by comparing responses to novel stimuli under single vs. dual-task conditions.
Aim 2 will be addressed by comparing responses to novelty under conditions that vary whether novel stimuli serve as distracters or potentially meaningful events.
Aim 3 will be addressed by comparing responses to salient stimuli under attend vs. ignore conditions. Our work will provide important insights into 1) the extent to which age-related differences between cognitively high and average performing adults are due to a decline in information processing capacity that begins earlier in the lifespan for average performers;2) the extent to which the magnitude of age-related differences between cognitively high and average performing adults differ across various stages of information processing;3) the extent to which members of different age and cognitive groups are able to vary their response to novel events depending on the context in which they occur;and 4) the extent to which ERP indices of sensory-perceptual encoding, selective attention, and capacity-limited controlled processing can differentially account for the variance in age-related changes in neuropsychological performance. In summary, the proposed research will provide an opportunity to elucidate factors that are fundamental to successful cognitive aging, an endeavor that is critical to this important field of study.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed research will investigate factors that contribute to successful cognitive aging, a topic of major importance to public health as an increasing number of Americans are living to advanced ages. We will study age-related changes in brain wave activity in individuals from 18 to over 90 years old who vary in their level of intellectual functioning.
We aim to identify underlying mechanisms that allow people to remain active and high functioning throughout adulthood.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG017935-10
Application #
8281586
Study Section
Cognition and Perception Study Section (CP)
Program Officer
Wagster, Molly V
Project Start
2000-04-01
Project End
2014-05-31
Budget Start
2012-06-01
Budget End
2014-05-31
Support Year
10
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$470,179
Indirect Cost
$201,506
Name
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department
Type
DUNS #
030811269
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02115
Porto, Fábio H G; Tusch, Erich S; Fox, Anne M et al. (2016) One of the most well-established age-related changes in neural activity disappears after controlling for visual acuity. Neuroimage 130:115-122
Tusch, Erich S; Alperin, Brittany R; Ryan, Eliza et al. (2016) Changes in Neural Activity Underlying Working Memory after Computerized Cognitive Training in Older Adults. Front Aging Neurosci 8:255
Simon, Sharon S; Tusch, Erich S; Holcomb, Phillip J et al. (2016) Increasing Working Memory Load Reduces Processing of Cross-Modal Task-Irrelevant Stimuli Even after Controlling for Task Difficulty and Executive Capacity. Front Hum Neurosci 10:380
Porto, Fábio Henrique de Gobbi; Fox, Anne Murphy; Tusch, Erich S et al. (2015) In vivo evidence for neuroplasticity in older adults. Brain Res Bull 114:56-61
Alperin, Brittany R; Tusch, Erich S; Mott, Katherine K et al. (2015) Investigating age-related changes in anterior and posterior neural activity throughout the information processing stream. Brain Cogn 99:118-27
Daffner, Kirk R; Alperin, Brittany R; Mott, Katherine K et al. (2015) Age-related differences in early novelty processing: using PCA to parse the overlapping anterior P2 and N2 components. Biol Psychol 105:83-94
Mott, Katherine K; Alperin, Brittany R; Fox, Anne M et al. (2015) The impact of executive capacity and age on mechanisms underlying multidimensional feature selection. Neuropsychologia 70:30-42
Daffner, Kirk R; Alperin, Brittany R; Mott, Katherine K et al. (2014) Age-related differences in the automatic processing of single letters: implications for selective attention. Neuroreport 25:77-82
Zhuravleva, Tatyana Y; Alperin, Brittany R; Haring, Anna E et al. (2014) Age-related decline in bottom-up processing and selective attention in the very old. J Clin Neurophysiol 31:261-71
Alperin, Brittany R; Mott, Katherine K; Rentz, Dorene M et al. (2014) Investigating the age-related ""anterior shift"" in the scalp distribution of the P3b component using principal component analysis. Psychophysiology 51:620-33

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