ABSTRACT

Past research suggests that working memory (WM) and motor control may engage similar cognitive and neural mechanisms in older adults, particularly when task difficulty increases. However, much of this evidence arises from comparisons across behavioral and imaging studies that test only one of the foregoing functional domains. The current study used fMRI within the same group of older adults to investigate whether WM and motor control recruit common mechanisms, and whether recruitment increased with task demand and age. A conjunction analysis across WM and motor tasks revealed engagement of several frontoparietal regions as a function of increasing task demand. A separate conjunction analysis which included age as a predictor showed comparable regions exhibit increased recruitment with both increasing task demand and age. Results suggest that the recruitment of common frontoparietal regions across WM and motor tasks in response to task difficulty is maintained across the older adult lifespan.

摘要

过去的研究表明，老年人的工作记忆 (WM) 和运动控制可能涉及类似的认知和神经机制，尤其是当任务难度增加时。然而，这些证据的大部分来自于行为和成像研究之间的比较，这些研究仅测试了上述功能域之一。目前的研究在同一组老年人中使用 fMRI 来调查 WM 和运动控制是否招募共同机制，以及招募是否随着任务需求和年龄而增加。对 WM 和运动任务的联合分析显示，随着任务需求的增加，几个额顶区域的参与。将年龄作为预测因素的单独联合分析表明，随着任务需求和年龄的增加，可比区域表现出增加的招募。