Compensatory Mechanisms for Preserving Speech-in-Noise Comprehension Involve Prefrontal Cortex in Older Adults

Abstract

Maintaining the ability to understand speech in real-life noisy environments is crucial for elderly adults, yet the underlying neural mechanisms remain elusive. To address this issue, we adopted an inter-brain neuroscience approach by modeling old listeners' neural activities to those of speakers in noisy conditions. Our findings reveal significant speaker-listener neural coupling from the old listeners' prefrontal cortex and classical language regions. Notably, compared to young listeners, the old listeners exhibited a more robust and widespread neural coupling in the prefrontal cortex, with a stable integration with the language regions across varying noise levels. Furthermore, the neural responses in the prefrontal cortex were found to correlate with the old listeners' comprehension performance, particularly when noise level escalated. Collectively, this study underscores a compensatory mechanism of the prefrontal cortex in preserving the ability of older adults to comprehend speech amidst noise in naturalistic settings, providing insights into the neurocognitive basis of successful aging.