Shared neural recruitment across working memory and motor control tasks as a function of task difficulty and age

Abstract

Past research has suggested that working memory and motor control may engage similar cognitive and neural mechanisms in older adults. However, much of this evidence arises from comparisons across behavioral and imaging studies that test only one of the foregoing functional domains. The current study expanded this work by examining both tasks within the same group of older adults. In addition, we examined whether the recruitment of common mechanisms increased with both task difficulty and with increasing age. Based on prior work, we anticipated that memory and motor tasks will engage similar regions in frontoparietal cortices. We also expected a parametric increase in activity in these regions as task difficulty increases, and that such increases would increase as a function of age. To test these hypotheses, 27 older adults completed a working memory and motor task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. A conjunction analysis revealed increased recruitment of bilateral dorsal and left ventral premotor cortices, left precentral gyrus, bilateral supramarginal gyri, and left angular gyrus as a function of greater task demand across working memory and motor tasks. A separate conjunction analysis which included age as a predictor showed as task difficulty increased across both tasks, many of these same regions exhibited increased recruitment as a function of increasing age. Taken together, these results suggest that common frontoparietal regions are engaged across both working memory and motor tasks in response to task difficulty, and recruitment of these overlapping regions are maintained across the older adult lifespan.

Uneven terrain versus dual-task walking: differential challenges imposed on walking behavior in older adults are predicted by cognitive and sensorimotor function

“…CRUNCH has not been investigated thoroughly in walking tasks where task difficulty is parametrically increased, such as walking on uneven terrains. Initial investigations in a visuomotor grasp task by Gerver et al (2019) showed that, in older adults, performance of the grasp task declined as task difficulty was increased. Along with the decrease in motor performance, they observed increases in brain activity across frontoparietal regions.…”

Coupling of sensorimotor and cognitive functions in middle- and late adulthood

“…Although we included a measure of general processing speed, we focused on the three core cognitive control functions, working memory/updating, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility ( Miyake and Friedman, 2012 ). While many multisensory integration processes occur automatically in association cortices, cognitive control processes involve frontal lobe circuitry ( D’Esposito and Postle, 2015 ; Gerver et al, 2020 ), which is most sensitive to aging. The following paragraphs summarize age-related differences in our cognitive measures and discuss how sensorimotor processes draw on processing speed, working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility.…”

Sleep restriction impairs visually and memory-guided force control

“…Working memory is the temporary storage and manipulation of information, and is an intersection between memory, perception, and the attentional control of behavior [11], and is necessary for motor skill acquisition [12,13]. Indeed, the motor system and working memory tasks recruit common neural pathways [14][15][16][17][18]. Considering that sleep restriction negatively affects working memory, it follows that sleep restriction may also affect performance of motor tasks that rely on working memory.…”