Alterations of resting-state EEG microstates have been associated with various neurological disorders and behavioral states. Interestingly, age-related differences in EEG microstate organization have also been reported, and it has been suggested that resting-state EEG activity may predict cognitive capacities in healthy individuals across the lifespan. In this exploratory study, we performed a microstate analysis of resting-state brain activity and tested allocentric spatial working memory performance in healthy adult individuals: twenty 25–30-year-olds and twenty-five 64–75-year-olds. We found a lower spatial working memory performance in older adults, as well as age-related differences in the five EEG microstate maps A, B, C, C′ and D, but especially in microstate maps C and C′. These two maps have been linked to neuronal activity in the frontal and parietal brain regions which are associated with working memory and attention, cognitive functions that have been shown to be sensitive to aging. Older adults exhibited lower global explained variance and occurrence of maps C and C′. Moreover, although there was a higher probability to transition from any map towards maps C, C′ and D in young and older adults, this probability was lower in older adults. Finally, although age-related differences in resting-state EEG microstates paralleled differences in allocentric spatial working memory performance, we found no evidence that any individual or combination of resting-state EEG microstate parameter(s) could reliably predict individual spatial working memory performance. Whether the temporal dynamics of EEG microstates may be used to assess healthy cognitive aging from resting-state brain activity requires further investigation.

静息状态脑电图微状态的变化已与各种神经系统疾病和行为状态相关联。有趣的是，也已报道了脑电图微状态组织中与年龄相关的差异，并且有人提出，静息状态的脑电图活动可预测整个生命期健康个体的认知能力。在这项探索性研究中，我们对静止状态的大脑活动进行了微状态分析，并测试了成年健康个体（20岁的25至30岁和25岁的64至75岁）的同素中心空间工作记忆性能。我们发现老年人的空间工作记忆性能较低，并且在五个脑电图微状态图A，B，C，C'和D中，尤其是在微状态图C和C'中，以及与年龄相关的差异。这两个图已经与额叶和顶叶大脑区域的神经元活动相关，这些活动与工作记忆和注意力有关，认知功能对衰老很敏感。老年人表现出较低的整体解释方差和图C和C'的出现。此外，尽管在年轻人和老年人中从任何地图过渡到地图C，C'和D的可能性更高，但在老年人中这种可能性较低。最后，尽管年龄相关的静止状态脑电微状态的差异与同心异位空间工作记忆性能的差异相似，但我们没有发现任何证据表明任何个体或静止状态脑电微状态参数的组合都可以可靠地预测个体空间工作记忆性能。