Age‐related functional brain connectivity during audio–visual hand‐held tool recognition. Issue 9 (18th July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ren, Yanna; Guo, Ao; Xu, Zhihan; Wang, Tao; Wu, Rui; Yang, Weiping
• Is Part Of: Brain and behavior. Volume 10:Issue 9(2020)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2020-07-18
• Subjects: audio–visual integration -- functional connectivity -- hand‐held tool recognition -- phase lag index -- stimulus intensity; Neurology -- Periodicals; Neurosciences -- Periodicals; Psychology -- Periodicals; Psychiatry -- Periodicals; 616.8005
• DOI: 10.1002/brb3.1759
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2162-3279

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: Previous studies have confirmed increased functional connectivity in elderly adults during processing of simple audio–visual stimuli; however, it is unclear whether elderly adults maximize their performance by strengthening their functional brain connectivity when processing dynamic audio–visual hand‐held tool stimuli. The present study aimed to explore this question using global functional connectivity. Methods: Twenty‐one healthy elderly adults and 21 healthy younger adults were recruited to conduct a dynamic hand‐held tool recognition task with high/low‐intensity stimuli. Results: Elderly adults exhibited higher areas under the curve for both the high‐intensity (3.5 versus. 2.7) and low‐intensity (3.0 versus. 1.2) stimuli, indicating a higher audio–visual integration ability, but a delayed and widened audio–visual integration window for elderly adults for both the high‐intensity (390 – 690 ms versus. 360 – 560 ms) and low‐intensity (460 – 690 ms versus. 430 – 500 ms) stimuli. Additionally, elderly adults exhibited higher theta‐band (all p < .01) but lower alpha‐, beta‐, and gamma‐band functional connectivity (all p < .05) than younger adults under both the high‐ and low‐intensity‐stimulus conditions when processing audio–visual stimuli, except for gamma‐band functional connectivity under the high‐intensity‐stimulus condition. Furthermore, higher theta‐ and alpha‐band functional connectivity were observed for the audio–visual stimuli than for the auditory and visual stimuli and under the high‐intensity‐stimulus condition than under the low‐intensity‐stimulus condition. Conclusion: The higher theta‐band functional connectivity in elderly adults was mainly due to higher attention allocation. The results further suggested that in the case of sensory processing, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma activity might participate in different stages of perception. Abstract : Although perceptual deficits in elderly adults have been reported extensively, our findings confirmed that elderly adults maximize their performance by enhancing audio‐visual integration and strengthening theta‐band functional brain connectivity when processing dynamic audio‐visual hand‐held tool stimuli. The results further demonstrated that in the case of sensory processing, the theta, alpha, beta and gamma activity might participate in different stages of perception.