Age-dependent relationships between prefrontal cortex activation and processing efficiency

作者：Motes Michael A^*; Biswal Bharat B; Rypma Bart

来源：Cognitive Neuroscience, 2011, 2(1): 1-10.

DOI：10.1080/17588928.2010.512974

• Processing efficiency
• Individual differences
• Cognitive aging
• Prefrontal cortex
• Neuroimaging

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in the present study to examine the neural basis for age-related differences in processing efficiency, particularly targeting prefrontal cortex (PFC). During scanning, older and younger participants completed a processing efficiency task in which they determined on each trial whether a symbol number pair appeared in a simultaneously presented array of nine symbol number pairs. Estimates of task-related blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal-change were obtained for each participant. These estimates were then correlated with the participants' performance on the task. For younger participants, BOLD signal-change within PFC decreased with better performance, but for older participants, BOLD signal-change within PFC increased with better performance. The results support the hypothesis that the availability and use of PFC resources mediate age-related changes in processing efficiency.

• 出版日期2011-3