Hippocampal activity during the transverse patterning task declines with cognitive competence but not with age

Abstract

BackgroundThe hippocampus is a brain region that is particularly affected by age-related morphological changes. It is generally assumed that a loss in hippocampal volume results in functional deficits that contribute to age-related cognitive decline. In a combined cross-sectional behavioural and magnetoencephalography (MEG) study we investigated whether hippocampal-associated neural current flow during a transverse patterning task - which requires learning relational associations between stimuli - correlates with age and whether it is modulated by cognitive competence.ResultsBetter performance in several tests of verbal memory, verbal fluency and executive function was indeed associated with higher hippocampal neural activity. Age, however, was not related to the strength of hippocampal neural activity: elderly participants responded slower than younger individuals but on average produced the same neural mass activity.ConclusionsOur results suggest that in non-pathological aging, hippocampal neural activity does not decrease with age but is rather related to cognitive competence.

The neural correlates of cognitive dysfunction in phantom sounds

“…TMT-A, TMT-B MoCA and MMSE) which are associated with hippocampal activity (Leirer et al, 2010), and especially medial temporal lobe atrophy (Oosterman et al, 2010). These measures have been used across a variety of studies and clinical populations, and are a cognitive processing.…”

Dynamic Imaging of Deep Brain Structures with MEG: Contributions to Understanding Human Memory

“…"VULG", "COSE", "RINT") to compare to the novel nonverbal abstract pictures . In healthy control participants, this verbal transverse patterning task activates the left hippocampus to a greater extent than the right , in contrast to the nonverbal transverse patterning task, which, as noted above, activates the right hippocampus to a greater degree than the left (Hanlon et al, 2003(Hanlon et al, , 2005Leirer et al, 2010;Mills et al, in review;Moses et al, 2009). This reinforces the notion that the left and right hippocampi process different information modalities, and also allows for the non-invasive evaluation of the functioning of right and left hippocampus separately.…”

“…Transverse patterning deficits are also observed in conditions associated with impaired hippocampal functioning such as schizophrenia (Hanlon et al, 2005 and normal aging (Dricoll et al, 2003). Additionally, transverse patterning performance elicits hippocampal activation measured with fMRI (Astur & Constable, 2004: Melzer, Nigishi & Constable, 2008Rowland et al, 2010) and MEG (Hanlon et al, 2003;Hopf et al, in reivew;Leirer et al, 2010;Mills et al, in review, Moses et al, 2009). However, the transverse patterning task can be solved despite bilateral hippocampal damage if the stimuli involved are designed to tap previously acquired semantic memories , the retrieval of which is thought to be mediated by frontal and anterior temporal cortices (Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000).…”

“…However, we will show new evidence from recent MEG studies that suggests a more distributed and interactive conceptualization of memory, and of cognition in general. Ionnides et al, 1995;Kirsh et al, 2003;Leirer et al, 2010;Martin et al, 2006;Mikuni et al, 1997;Mills et al, in review;Moses et al, 2009, Nishitani et al, 1999Papanicolaou et al, 2002;Stephen et al, 2005;Quraan et al, 2010;Riggs et al, 2009;Tesche, 1997;Tesche & Karhu, 1999Tesche, Karhu & Tissari, 1996). Thus, using a well-designed paradigm and appropriate analysis techniques, stimulus-evoked hippocampal activation is detectable using MEG.…”

Multimodal EEG Recordings, Psychometrics and Behavioural Analysis

“…Overall one can nowadays pinpoint activity in pathways relevant for higher mental function measured in multimodal (multiple choice [72], recollection of own thought [73]) or unimodal MEG assessments (sensory conflict [74], ‘linguistic recognition' [75]) or combined with ‘beamformer-like' analyses for tasks implying set shifting [76,77]. …”