ArticleFrontiers in psychology2024
Compensatory brain activity pattern is not present in older adults during the n-back task performance-Findings based on EEG frequency analysis.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Parental broad autism phenotype traits and executive function in families of children with autism spectrum disorder.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Associations between declines in uneven terrain walking speed and visuospatial working memory in older adults.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Article
- Limited training and transfer effects in older and young adults who participated in 12 sessions of process-based working memory training. A three-armed pretest-posttest design study.BMC research notes · 2024Article
- Cognitive training and retest learning effects on theta and alpha power in older and young adults: A perspective on the crunch hypothesis and the STAC-R model.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Cognitive ability is one of the most important enablers for successful aging. At the same time, cognitive decline is a well-documented phenomenon accompanying the aging process. Nevertheless, it is acknowledged that aging can also be related to positive processes that allow one to compensate for the decline. These processes include the compensatory brain activity of older adults primarily investigated using fMRI and PET. To strengthen the cognitive interpretation of compensatory brain activity in older adults, we searched for its indicators in brain activity measured by EEG. Methods: The study sample comprised 110 volunteers, including 50 older adults (60-75 years old) and 60 young adults (20-35 years old) who performed 1-back, 2-back, and 3-back tasks while recording the EEG signal. The study analyzed (1) the level of cognitive performance, including sensitivity index, the percentage of correct answers to the target, and the percentage of false alarm errors; (2) theta and alpha power for electrodes located in the frontal-midline (Fz, AF3, AF4, F3, F4, FC1, and FC2) and the centro-parietal (CP1, CP2, P3, P4, and Pz) areas. Results: Cognitive performance was worse in older adults than in young adults, which manifested in a significantly lower sensitivity index and a significantly higher false alarm error rate at all levels of the n-back task difficulty. Simultaneously, performance worsened with increasing task difficulty regardless of age. Significantly lower theta power in the older participants was observed at all difficulty levels, even at the lowest one, where compensatory activity was expected. At the same time, at this difficulty level, cognitive performance was worse in older adults than in young adults, which could reduce the chances of observing compensatory brain activity. The significant decrease in theta power observed in both age groups with rising task difficulty can reflect a declining capacity for efficient cognitive functioning under increasing demands rather than adapting to this increase. Moreover, in young adults, alpha power decreased to some extent with increasing cognitive demand, reflecting adaptation to them, while in older adults, no analogous pattern was observed. Discussion: In conclusion, based on the results of the current study, the presence of compensatory activity in older adults cannot be inferred.
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