The P3 Parietal-To-Frontal Shift Relates to Age-Related Slowing in a Selective Attention Task

Abstract

Abstract. Older adults recruit relatively more frontal as compared to parietal resources in a variety of cognitive and perceptual tasks. It is not yet clear whether this parietal-to-frontal shift is a compensatory mechanism, or simply reflects a reduction in processing efficiency. In this study we aimed to investigate how the parietal-to-frontal shift with aging relates to selective attention. Fourteen young and 26 older healthy adults performed a color Flanker task under three conditions (incongruent, congruent, neutral) and event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured. The P3 was analyzed for the electrode positions Pz, Cz, and Fz as an indicator of the parietal-to-frontal shift. Further, behavioral performance and other ERP components (P1 and N1 at electrodes O1 and O2; N2 at electrodes Fz and Cz) were investigated. First young and older adults were compared. Older adults had longer response times, reduced accuracy, longer P3 latencies, and a more frontal distribution of P3 than young adults. These results confirm the parietal-to-frontal shift in the P3 with age for the selective attention task. Second, based on the differences between frontal and parietal P3 activity the group of older adults was subdivided into those showing a rather equal distribution of the P3 and older participants showing a strong frontal focus of the P3. Older adults with a more frontally distributed P3 had longer response times than participants with a more equally distributed P3. These results suggest that the frontally distributed P3 observed in older adults has no compensatory function in selective attention but rather indicates less efficient processing and slowing with age.

Acute Exercise Facilitates the N450 Inhibition Marker and P3 Attention Marker during Stroop Test in Young and Older Adults

“…Rather than calculating peak amplitude and peak latency for the N450 and P3 components, the current study calculated mean amplitude given that: (a) older adults had no evident peaks in either component, as depicted by the grand-averaged waveforms ( Figure 1 ); (b) it could be problematic to use peak amplitudes when comparing young and older adults given that aging affects the onset and time course of N450 [ 23 ] and P3 [ 46 ]; and (c) calculating peak amplitude would be problematic considering the unequal number of congruent and incongruent trials in which the latter would have a lower signal-to-noise ratio [ 19 ], particularly for the N450 component. Clayson and colleagues [ 47 ] have validated the use of mean amplitude over peak amplitude or other adjusted methods, showing that the former provides robust ERP data regardless of changes in background artificial noise.…”

“…Likewise, the P3 mean amplitude was obtained by taking mean values within the 300- to 500-ms and 350- to 650-ms time windows after stimulus onset for young and older adults, respectively. These time windows were selected based on previous studies [ 19 , 46 , 48 , 49 ] and visual inspection of the grand-averaged waveforms ( Figure 1 ).…”

From neuro-pigments to neural efficiency: The relationship between retinal carotenoids and behavioral and neuroelectric indices of cognitive control in childhood

“…We examined children’s cognitive performance (response accuracy and reaction time) during a modified flanker task as well as the peak amplitudes and latencies of the P3 elicited during the task. Abundant prior literature has used the flanker task to elicit P3 in many research contexts including investigations into conflict monitoring and inhibition (Clayson & Larson 2011a; Clayson & Larson 2011b; Purmann et al 2011; Groom & Cragg 2015), health-related behaviors (Hillman et al, 2014; Charles H. Hillman, Snook, & Jerome, 2003; Charles H Hillman, Buck, Themanson, Pontifex, & Castelli, 2009; Kamijo, Nishihara, Higashiura, & Kuroiwa, 2007; Pontifex & Hillman, 2007), child development (Brydges et al 2014; Rueda et al 2005; Ridderinkhof & van der Molen 1995; Ruberry et al 2016), cognitive aging (Hillman, Belopolsky, Snook, Kramer, & McAuley, 2004; Hsieh, Liang, & Tsai, 2012; Korsch, Frühholz, & Herrmann, 2016; Reuter, Voelcker-Rehage, Vieluf, Parianen Lesemann, & Godde, 2016), and clinical diagnoses (Johnstone & Galletta 2013; Johnstone et al 2009; Jonkman et al 1999; Liu et al 2011; Bartholow et al 2003; Rusnakova et al 2011; Racer et al 2011). We assessed lutein levels via a measure of Macular Pigment Optical Density (MPOD) using customized hetero-flicker photometry (cHFP).…”

Transient and sustained incentive effects on electrophysiological indices of cognitive control in younger and older adults

“…With respect to aging, cue-P3 is delayed in older adults and exhibits less differentiation on the basis of cue significance (Hämmerer, Li, Müller, & Lindenberger, 2010;Kray, Eppinger, & Mecklinger, 2005;Kropotov, Ponomarev, Tereshchenko, Müller, & Jäncke, 2016). Similarly, target-P3 in older relative to younger adults is delayed, more frontally distributed, and is attenuated by conflict (Reuter, Voelcker-Rehage, Vieluf, Lesemann, & Godde, 2016;Wild-Wall, Falkenstein, & Hohnsbein, 2008;Williams et al, 2016).…”