Age-related brain mechanisms underlying short-term recognition of musical sequences: An EEG study

Abstract

Recognition is the ability to correctly identify previously learned information. It is an important part of declarative episodic memory and a vital cognitive function, which declines with ageing. Several studies investigated recognition of visual elements, complex images, spatial patterns, and musical melodies, focusing especially on automatic and long-term recognition. Here, we studied the impact of ageing on the event-related potentials using electroencephalography (EEG) associated with short-term recognition of auditory sequences. To this end, we recruited 54 participants, which were divided into two groups: (i) 29 young adults (20-30 years old), (ii) 25 older adults (60-80 years old). We presented two sequences with an interval of a few seconds. Participants were asked to state how similar the second sequence was with regards to the first one. The neural results indicated a stronger negative, widespread activity associated with the recognition of the same sequence compared to the sequences that were transposed or completely different. This difference was widely distributed across the EEG sensors and involved especially temporo-parietal areas of the scalp. Notably, we reported largely reduced neural responses for the older versus young adults, even when no behavioral differences were observed. In conclusion, our study suggests that the combination of auditory sequences, music, and fast-scale neurophysiology may represent a privileged solution to better understand short-term memory and the cognitive decline associated with ageing.

Neurophysiological correlates of short-term recognition of sounds: Insights from magnetoencephalography

“…It should be noted that this cluster category showed greater activity overall, suggesting that same target sounds elicited stronger neural responses compared to different target sounds. This finding is coherent with previous studies on the brain mechanisms underlying long-term , Fernández-Rubio et al, 2022) and short-term (Costa et al, 2023) recognition of auditory sequences. Consistently with those investigations, in the current study we reported an increased amplitude for the slow negative responses to the previously heard, same, sounds.…”

“…These studies provided solid evidence of the neural mechanisms underlying predictive processes during long-term recognition of musical sounds. In contrast, the rapid spatiotemporal dynamics of recognition of sounds in the context of short-term, local encoding and retrieval remain in part elusive (Costa et al, 2023).…”

Challenging age-related decline in brain function: Evidence from fast neuroimaging of musical sequence recognition

“…In a classic MEG study, Babiloni and colleagues 20 used two delayed response tasks, reporting altered alpha event-related desynchronisation (ERD) associated with aging. In a recent EEG study, Costa and colleagues 21 investigated the age-related differences in the neural activity during short-term recognition of musical sequences. They showed that older adults reported decreased slow negative responses associated with auditory processing compared to young participants.…”