scholarly journals The effects of aging on neural signatures of temporal regularity processing in sounds

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Herrmann ◽  
Chad Buckland ◽  
Ingrid S. Johnsrude
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Amplitude Modulation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Auditory Periphery ◽  
Temporal Regularity ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Effects Of Aging ◽  
Neural Gain

AbstractSensitivity to temporal regularity (e.g., amplitude modulation) is crucial for speech perception. Degradation of the auditory periphery due to aging and hearing loss may lead to an increased response gain in auditory cortex, with potential consequences for the processing of temporal regularities. We used electroencephalography recorded from younger (18–33 years) and older (55–80 years) adults to investigate how aging affects neural gain and the neural sensitivity to amplitude modulation in sounds. Aging was associated with reduced adaptation in auditory cortex, suggesting an age-related gain increase. Consistently, neural synchronization in auditory cortex to a 4-Hz amplitude modulation of a narrow-band noise was enhanced in ~30% of older individuals. Despite enhanced responsivity in auditory cortex, sustained neural activity (likely involving auditory and higher-order brain regions) in response to amplitude modulation was absent in older people. Hence, aging may lead to an over-responsivity to amplitude modulation in auditory cortex, but to a diminished regularity representation in higher-order areas.

scholarly journals Heterogeneity of EEG resting-state brain networks in absolute pitch

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marielle Greber ◽  
Carina Klein ◽  
Simon Leipold ◽  
Silvano Sele ◽  
Lutz Jäncke
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Whole Brain

AbstractThe neural basis of absolute pitch (AP), the ability to effortlessly identify a musical tone without an external reference, is poorly understood. One of the key questions is whether perceptual or cognitive processes underlie the phenomenon as both sensory and higher-order brain regions have been associated with AP. One approach to elucidate the neural underpinnings of a specific expertise is the examination of resting-state networks.Thus, in this paper, we report a comprehensive functional network analysis of intracranial resting-state EEG data in a large sample of AP musicians (n = 54) and non-AP musicians (n = 51). We adopted two analysis approaches: First, we applied an ROI-based analysis to examine the connectivity between the auditory cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) using several established functional connectivity measures. This analysis is a replication of a previous study which reported increased connectivity between these two regions in AP musicians. Second, we performed a whole-brain network-based analysis on the same functional connectivity measures to gain a more complete picture of the brain regions involved in a possibly large-scale network supporting AP ability.In our sample, the ROI-based analysis did not provide evidence for an AP-specific connectivity increase between the auditory cortex and the DLPFC. In contrast, the whole-brain analysis revealed three networks with increased connectivity in AP musicians comprising nodes in frontal, temporal, subcortical, and occipital areas. Commonalities of the networks were found in both sensory and higher-order brain regions of the perisylvian area. Further research will be needed to confirm these exploratory results.

Effects of Aging on Impairment Ratings: Part 4: Musculoskeletal Issues

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Demeter ◽  
Charles N. Brooks ◽  
J. Mark Melhorn
Keyword(s):  
Medical Literature ◽  
Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Repetitive Motion ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Spinal Ligaments ◽  
Impairment Ratings ◽  
Effects Of Aging ◽  
Causation Analysis ◽  
Injury Causation

Abstract This article is the fourth of five in a series on the effects of age-related changes in impairment evaluations as defined by the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Fifth and Sixth Editions. The present article addresses the musculoskeletal system and differs from the first three articles, which focused on apportionment of an impairment rating between aging and other causes. The medical literature supports the notion that age-related osteoarthritis (OA) changes in the hand and digits frequently are associated with injury and/or repetitive motion. Thus, apportionment is indicated, but deciding which came first, the imaging abnormality or the injury, requires consummate skill on behalf of the rating physician. OA also occurs in the knees and hips of older individuals. Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) is a noninflammatory disorder characterized by calcification and ossification of spinal ligaments and entheses and is unique, in the authors’ opinion, because of a positive correlation between aging and back pain caused by this condition. The article also addresses the association—or the lack thereof—between pathology and aging, as well as degenerative changes and symptoms, to facilitate causation analysis. For a fuller discussion of causation analysis for the spine, readers can consult the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Disease and Injury Causation, Second Edition.

Effects of aging on intestinal lipid absorption

1993 ◽  
Vol 264 (1) ◽  
pp. G1-G6 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. R. Holt ◽  
J. A. Balint
Keyword(s):  
The Elderly ◽  
Lipid Absorption ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Lipid Digestion ◽  
Cholesterol Levels ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Intercurrent Illness ◽  
Effects Of Aging ◽  
Available Information ◽  
Age Related Changes

Because of the "graying" of the population there is increasing interest in age-related changes in organ physiology. Impairment of lipid absorption, if present, could lead to malnutrition in the elderly while increased uptake of cholesterol could contribute to the rise in serum cholesterol levels seen in older individuals. This review critically analyzes the available information on age-related changes in digestive and absorptive physiology of lipids. Overall, the data suggest that lipid digestion and absorption are, in general, well-preserved in aging. However, intercurrent illness or experimental stress may produce impairment in aging animals and humans that are not seen in younger controls. Areas deserving more detailed study are identified in this review and include intestinal motility, adaptation to stress, and assembly and transport of lipoproteins from enterocytes to lymph.

scholarly journals Effects of Aging and Tocotrienol-Rich Fraction Supplementation on Brain Arginine Metabolism in Rats

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Musalmah Mazlan ◽  
Hamizah Shahirah Hamezah ◽  
Nursiati Mohd Taridi ◽  
Yu Jing ◽  
Ping Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Chromatography ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Arginine Metabolism ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass ◽  
Male Wistar Rats ◽  
Effects Of Aging ◽  
Tocotrienol Rich Fraction

Accumulating evidence suggests that altered arginine metabolism is involved in the aging and neurodegenerative processes. This study sought to determine the effects of age and vitamin E supplementation in the form of tocotrienol-rich fraction (TRF) on brain arginine metabolism. Male Wistar rats at ages of 3 and 21 months were supplemented with TRF orally for 3 months prior to the dissection of tissue from five brain regions. The tissue concentrations of L-arginine and its nine downstream metabolites were quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. We found age-related alterations in L-arginine metabolites in the chemical- and region-specific manners. Moreover, TRF supplementation reversed age-associated changes in arginine metabolites in the entorhinal cortex and cerebellum. Multiple regression analysis revealed a number of significant neurochemical-behavioral correlations, indicating the beneficial effects of TRF supplementation on memory and motor function.

scholarly journals High-order areas and auditory cortex both represent the high-level event structure of music

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamal A. Williams ◽  
Elizabeth H. Margulis ◽  
Samuel A. Nastase ◽  
Janice Chen ◽  
Uri Hasson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Markov Model ◽  
Hidden Markov Model ◽  
Hidden Markov ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
High Level

AbstractRecent fMRI studies of event segmentation have found that default mode regions represent high-level event structure during movie watching. In these regions, neural patterns are relatively stable during events and shift at event boundaries. Music, like narratives, contains hierarchical event structure (e.g., sections are composed of phrases). Here, we tested the hypothesis that brain activity patterns in default mode regions reflect the high-level event structure of music. We used fMRI to record brain activity from 25 participants (male and female) as they listened to a continuous playlist of 16 musical excerpts, and additionally collected annotations for these excerpts by asking a separate group of participants to mark when meaningful changes occurred in each one. We then identified temporal boundaries between stable patterns of brain activity using a hidden Markov model and compared the location of the model boundaries to the location of the human annotations. We identified multiple brain regions with significant matches to the observer-identified boundaries, including auditory cortex, mPFC, parietal cortex, and angular gyrus. From these results, we conclude that both higher-order and sensory areas contain information relating to the high-level event structure of music. Moreover, the higher-order areas in this study overlap with areas found in previous studies of event perception in movies and audio narratives, including regions in the default mode network.Significance StatementListening to music requires the brain to track dynamics at multiple hierarchical timescales. In our study, we had fMRI participants listen to real-world music (classical and jazz pieces) and then used an unsupervised learning algorithm (a hidden Markov model) to model the high-level event structure of music within participants’ brain data. This approach revealed that default mode brain regions involved in representing the high-level event structure of narratives are also involved in representing the high-level event structure of music. These findings provide converging support for the hypothesis that these regions play a domain-general role in processing stimuli with long-timescale dependencies.

scholarly journals A Neural Signature of Regularity in Sound is Reduced in Older Adults

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Herrmann ◽  
Burkhard Maess ◽  
Ingrid S. Johnsrude
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Sound Perception ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Sound Processing ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Increased Sensitivity ◽  
Neural Signature ◽  
Age Related Changes

AbstractSensitivity to repetitions in sound amplitude and frequency is crucial for sound perception. As with other aspects of sound processing, sensitivity to such patterns may change with age, and may help explain some age-related changes in hearing such as segregating speech from background sound. We recorded magnetoencephalography to characterize differences in the processing of sound patterns between younger and older adults. We presented tone sequences that either contained a pattern (made of a repeated set of tones) or did not contain a pattern. We show that auditory cortex in older, compared to younger, adults is hyperresponsive to sound onsets, but that sustained neural activity in auditory cortex, indexing the processing of a sound pattern, is reduced. Hence, the sensitivity of neural populations in auditory cortex fundamentally differs between younger and older individuals, overresponding to sound onsets, while underresponding to patterns in sounds. This may help to explain some age-related changes in hearing such as increased sensitivity to distracting sounds and difficulties tracking speech in the presence of other sound.

scholarly journals High-Order Areas and Auditory Cortex Both Represent the High-Level Event Structure of Music

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Jamal A. Williams ◽  
Elizabeth H. Margulis ◽  
Samuel A. Nastase ◽  
Janice Chen ◽  
Uri Hasson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Angular Gyrus ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Medial Pfc ◽  
High Level

Abstract Recent fMRI studies of event segmentation have found that default mode regions represent high-level event structure during movie watching. In these regions, neural patterns are relatively stable during events and shift at event boundaries. Music, like narratives, contains hierarchical event structure (e.g., sections are composed of phrases). Here, we tested the hypothesis that brain activity patterns in default mode regions reflect the high-level event structure of music. We used fMRI to record brain activity from 25 participants (male and female) as they listened to a continuous playlist of 16 musical excerpts and additionally collected annotations for these excerpts by asking a separate group of participants to mark when meaningful changes occurred in each one. We then identified temporal boundaries between stable patterns of brain activity using a hidden Markov model and compared the location of the model boundaries to the location of the human annotations. We identified multiple brain regions with significant matches to the observer-identified boundaries, including auditory cortex, medial pFC, parietal cortex, and angular gyrus. From these results, we conclude that both higher-order and sensory areas contain information relating to the high-level event structure of music. Moreover, the higher-order areas in this study overlap with areas found in previous studies of event perception in movies and audio narratives, including regions in the default mode network.

Effects of Aging on Working Memory and Workload

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-142
Author(s):  
Starr Lynn Fox ◽  
F. T. Eggemeier ◽  
David W. Biers
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Mental Workload ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Air Traffic Controller ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Perceived Workload ◽  
Effects Of Aging

The current study investigated the effects of aging on working memory and mental workload. Subjects performed a Brown-Peterson memory task using simulated air traffic controller/pilot communications. Perceived mental workload was measured using the NASA-TLX rating scale. Results revealed no significant recall performance differences between younger and older individuals. However, workload ratings indicated that older individuals experienced higher perceived workload than younger individuals. These findings suggest subjective workload ratings may be sensitive to age-related differences not demonstrated by performance measures.

scholarly journals Protective effects of acute exercise preconditioning on disuse-induced muscular atrophy in aged muscle: a narrative literature review

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshinori Yoshihara ◽  
Hisashi Naito
Keyword(s):  
Skeletal Muscle ◽  
Acute Exercise ◽  
Muscular Atrophy ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Exercise Preconditioning ◽  
Narrative Literature Review ◽  
Exercise Induced ◽  
Effects Of Aging

AbstractAging is associated with a progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength, resulting in frailty and lower quality of life in older individuals. At present, a standard of clinical or pharmacological care to prevent the adverse effects of aging does not exist. Determining the mechanism(s) responsible for muscular atrophy in disused aged muscle is a required key step for the development of effective countermeasures. Studies suggest an age-related differential response of genes and signalings to muscle disuse in both rodents and humans, implying the possibility that effective countermeasures to prevent disuse muscle atrophy may be age-specific. Notably, exercise preconditioning can attenuate disuse-induced muscular atrophy in rodent and human skeletal muscles; however, information on age-specific mechanisms of this exercise-induced protection remains limited. This mini-review aimed to summarize the protective effects of acute exercise preconditioning on muscular atrophy in aged muscle and provide potential mechanisms for its preventive effect on skeletal muscle wasting.

scholarly journals Age- and reserve-related increases in fronto-parietal and anterior hippocampal activity during episodic encoding predict subsequent memory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelhalim Elshiekh ◽  
Sivaniya Subramaniapillai ◽  
Sricharana Rajagopal ◽  
Stamatoula Pasvanis ◽  
Elizabeth Ankudowich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Aging Brain ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Encoding And Retrieval

AbstractRemembering associations between encoded items and their contextual setting is a feature of episodic memory. Although this ability deteriorates with age in general, there is substantial variability in how older individuals perform on episodic memory tasks. This variability may stem from genetic and/or environmental factors related to reserve, allowing some individuals to compensate for age-related decline through differential recruitment of brain regions. In this fMRI study, we tested predictions related to reserve and compensation in a large adult lifespan sample (N=154). We used multivariate Behaviour Partial Least Squares (B-PLS) analysis to examine how age, retrieval accuracy, and a proxy measure of reserve, impacted brain activity patterns during spatial and temporal context encoding and retrieval. Reserve modulated age-related compensatory brain responses in ventral visual, temporal, and fronto-parietal regions during memory encoding as a function of task demands. Activity in inferior parietal, medial temporal, and ventral visual regions were strongly impacted by age at encoding and retrieval, but were also related to individual differences in reserve. Our findings are consistent with the concepts of reserve and compensation and suggest that reserve may mitigate age-related decline by modulating compensatory brain responses in the aging brain.

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