The impact of aging on neurophysiological entrainment to a metronome

Aging effects on neural entrainment to a musical beat

“…This could be consistent with the compensation hypothesis of aging, where older adults increase activity at the CR and the H3 in order to compensate for the decrease in activity at the BF. Crucially, similarly to Sauvé et al (2019), the difference in pure tone audiometric thresholds between age groups did not have a significant effect on neural activity amplitudes and so differences observed between age groups cannot here be attributed to low-level hearing abilities.…”

“…non-syncopated) and when there is less acoustic energy at the beat frequency, and the perception of beat is derived endogenously (i.e., syncopated; see Lenc et al 2018). Based on our previous findings (Sauvé et al, 2019), we expect to see smaller amplitudes for neural activity at the beat frequency, or larger amplitudes for neural activity at the harmonics of the beat frequency, in older adults compared to younger adults. Additionally, given older adults' increased knowledge about musical patterns, it is hypothesized that older adults will have smaller differences between neural amplitudes at the beat frequency for endogenously and exogenously derived beats (i.e., syncopated vs. non-syncopated) compared to younger adults.…”

“…In this case, the larger amplitude of neural activity at the beat's harmonics and corresponding lack of selectivity of the beat frequency in older adults as compared to younger adults seems to be evidence of a lack of ability to automatically enhance the most relevant information (i.e. the beat) (Sauvé et al, 2019).…”

“…Twenty-nine participants (same as Sauvé et al, 2019) participated in this study and provided written informed consent in accordance with the Interdisciplinary Committee on Ethics in Human Research at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Participants were divided into two age groups: 15 older adults (>60 yrs; 10 female) and 14 younger adults (<25 yrs; 7 female).…”

“…In terms of rhythm perception, Sauvé et al (2019) used frequency-tagging to compare neural activity in older and younger adults while passively listening to a metronome. This study found that older adults, compared to younger adults, had reduced amplitude of neural activity at the frequency of the metronome (i.e., beat frequency) and a smaller drop off in amplitude from the beat frequency to the first three harmonics of the beat frequency (Sauvé et al, 2019). Critically, these differences were not due to age-related changes in hearing as measured by pure-tone thresholds.…”