Developmental and Condition-Related Changes in the Prefrontal Cortex Activity during Rest

Abstract

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role in cognitive process related to executive function, but is also active during resting states. Quantifying prefrontal cortex activity during resting states provides a baseline for interpreting task-induced brain activity. Researchers commonly use resting conditions where participants are prompted to stare at a screen (eyes open) or close their eyes (eyes closed). Are these two conditions equivalent representations of a baseline resting state? Further, does prefrontal cortex activity during these conditions change as a function of development? The aim of this study was to examine differences in prefrontal cortex activity between eyes open and eyes closed conditions during resting states in children and adults to provide a rationale of proper selection of baseline condition in future research. Thirty-six participants in 3 age groups were recruited in this study including twenty-four adults, five 12 -15 years old children, and seven 8 -11 years old children. Relative changes in concentrations of oxygenated hemoglobin (Δoxy-Hb) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (Δdeoxy-Hb) were obtained by using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) in eyes closed (EC) and eyes open (EO) conditions, 3 minutes each. Contrasts were tested to compare the differences of Δoxy-Hb and Δdeoxy-Hb between eyes open and eyes closed conditions. The EC condition had significantly higher Δoxy-Hb than EO when all groups were combined (t (17.268) = 3.021, p = .008, Cohen's d = −0.72). When comparing Δoxy-Hb between eyes conditions within each group, the younger group had significantly higher Δoxy-Hb in EC than EO (t (9.459) = 2.734, p = 0.022, Cohen's d = −1.46). Based on these results, the EO condition may be a better baseline condition, particularly in studies with younger children, since it has less activity in the PFC that could interfere with interpretations of task-induced activity.

The developmental trajectory of fronto‐temporoparietal connectivity as a proxy of the default mode network: a longitudinal fNIRS investigation

“…Therefore, in this study we measured connectivity between frontal, temporal, and parietal brain areas, which we will refer to as fronto-temporoparietal connectivity, as a proxy for the DMN. The approach of studying portions of the DMN as a proxy for this network has been recently adopted by adult studies, focusing in particular on the mPFC (Durantin, Dehais, & Delorme, 2015;Liang, Chen, Shewokis, & Getchell, 2016;Sasai et al, 2012) and the parietal lobes (Rosenbaum et al, 2017;Sasai et al, 2012).…”

Does Movement Matter? Prefrontal Cortex Activity During 2D vs. 3D Performance of the Tower of Hanoi Puzzle

“…Data were subsequently converted to changes in concentration using the modified Beer-Lambert law (Cope and Delpy, 1988) and depicted into four outcome measures: change in oxygenated hemoglobin (ΔHbO), change in deoxygenated hemoglobin (ΔHbR), total change in hemoglobin (ΔHbT) and total change in oxygenation (ΔOxy). We restricted our analysis to ΔHbO because our preliminary analysis showed high correlation among ΔHbO, ΔHbT, and ΔOxy, in addition to ΔHbO having stronger and more wide-spread signals than those from ΔHbR and ΔHbT (Zhang et al, 2011), including in the ToH task (Liang et al, 2016a,b). Furthermore, it has been shown that ΔHbO has a strong correlation to BOLD signal whereas ΔHbR has a weak correlation (Strangman et al, 2002), in addition to better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than ΔHbR (Hoshi, 2007; Zhang et al, 2010).…”

“…Notably, the ToH puzzle has the advantage of being sensitive to disruption in the PFC (Simon, 1975; Saint-Cyr et al, 1988; Casey et al, 1994; Goel and Grafman, 1995). Additionally, the activity of the PFC during the computerized version of ToH has been shown using different neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI (Head et al, 2002; Griebling et al, 2010; Crescentini et al, 2012) and EEG (Ruiz-Díaz et al, 2012; Guevara et al, 2013), in addition to functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS; Liang et al, 2016a,b). fNIRS is a neuroimaging tool that is non-invasive, portable, affordable, and safe for continuous and repeated measurements.…”

Digital Health Games for Older Adults: Development, Implementation, and Programmatic Implications of Health Game Use in Senior Centers

“…The team also brings experience in the development and implementation of tailored technology‐based health promotion interventions; community‐engaged mixed‐methods research; and embodied interactive games. The development work expanded upon team members' prior work with health game development (Ruggiero et al, 2020; Ruggiero et al, 2023), research in senior centers using commercial exergames (Orsega‐Smith et al, 2012; Orsega‐Smith et al, 2020), use of fNIRS in adults participating in cognitively stimulating computer‐based tasks (Bakhshipour et al, 2020; Koiler et al, 2022; Liang et al, 2016; Milla et al, 2019), and designing embodied interactive systems and games using Microsoft Kinect for healthcare education and rehabilitation (Barmaki & Hughes, 2018a; Barmaki & Hughes, 2018b; Barmaki et al, 2019; Bork et al, 2017; Yu et al, 2018).…”