Age-related differences in neural activity resulting from divided attention tasks: an fMRI study
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1
RWTH Aachen University, Germany
The aim of this study is to detect age-related differences in cortical representations of within-modal and cross-modal divided attention tasks by using functional magnetic resonance imaging. A group of younger subjects (aged 21 to 30 years) and a group of older subjects (aged 51 to 74 years), each comprising sixteen healthy male subjects performed one cross-modal (auditory/visual) and two within-modal (auditory/auditory; visual/visual) divided attention tasks. During the cross-modal task, stronger divided attention specific bilateral activation in inferior and middle frontal areas, in the cingulate gyrus and in the inferior parietal lobule as well as in the left claustrum was measured in the old group than in the young group. In the old group the right inferior parietal lobule was also strongly activated during the two within-modal tasks, indicating that in older people this structure is highly involved in divided attention irrespective of sensory modality. We propose that the additional activation in the old group reflects compensatory effects caused by the greater demand of attentional resources in order to regulate the system. On the other hand, additional activation was detected in the young group only during the cross-modal task in the thalamus. This might represent a more bottom-up organization of the processing of divided attention.
Conference:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Cognitive Aging
Citation:
Vohn
R,
Fimm
B,
Schnitker
R,
Weis
S and
Sturm
W
(2008). Age-related differences in neural activity resulting from divided attention tasks: an fMRI study.
Conference Abstract:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.179
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Received:
08 Dec 2008;
Published Online:
08 Dec 2008.
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Correspondence:
Rene Vohn, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, rene@izkf.rwth-aachen.de