In addition to cognitive changes, aging is associated with emotional changes such as loss of interest in activities, lowered responding to emotional information, and difficulty in reading emotional cues. These emotional changes occur in normal aging and tend to be pronounced in age-related neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson Disease (PD). In addition to psychosocial factors (e.g., loss of spouse, declining health), there is some evidence that age-related dampening of neural response in limbic regions crucially involved in processing of emotion (i.e., anterior insula) may underlie these emotional deficits in aging. The anterior insula supports the integration of internal signals from our body with external signals in our environment and helps us simulate our own emotional states and the emotions of others to better understand how they feel. These processes contribute to successful social interaction and promote well-being. To date, processes in the brain underlying emotional deficits and particularly the extent to which they are malleable have been primarily studied in young adults, while research on older adults and in PD is scarce. The proposed study aims to fill this research gap by applying the highly innovative technology of real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI) that allows for direct testing of brain-behavior links. Emotional health is relevant to people across all age groups. Thus, it is vital to understand the extent to which and why emotions change as individuals grow older, and to determine processes involved in effective regulation on the level of brain and behavior.
In Aim 1, we will examine whether young and older healthy adults and PD patients can learn to up- and down-regulate brain activity in anterior insula.
In Aim 2, we will test whether increasing one?s own anterior insula activity can improve the ability to recognize others? emotions and affects responding to emotional cues. In particular, we will assess participants? anterior insula activity in real time and give them continuous feedback about how active it is. We will train participants to increase or decrease activity in anterior insula (or auditory cortex activity as a control) when asked to do so. At pre- and post-training, participants will try to assess the emotions of people seen in pictures as well as regulate their emotional response to images of scenes and objects. Information gained from this project will advance scientific knowledge of the basic mechanistic chain underlying emotion processing in healthy and pathological aging. In addition, our project will implement rtfMRI as a novel neuroimaging technique for the study of brain-behavior connections in older populations.
Emotional changes such as reduced emotional responding or the difficulty to read emotions in self and others occur as individuals reach advanced age and become more pronounced with age-related brain disorders. Currently, still little is known about the processes in the brain that lead to these emotional deficits with age and the extent to which they are malleable. The proposed study explores an innovative brain-imaging technology (i.e., neurofeedback training) to measure the brain?s ability to learn to regulate brain activity in anterior insula, a region in the brain that is particularly relevant for emotion, towards improvement of emotional responding in healthy young and older adults as well as patients with Parkinson Disease. Findings and methods developed from this research will have the potential to spur hypotheses about intervention approaches targeted at emotion dysregulation in aging.
