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. 2016 May 9:8:99.
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2016.00099. eCollection 2016.

An Event-Related Potential Investigation of the Effects of Age on Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Function

David A S Kaufman  1 , Christopher N Sozda  2 , Vonetta M Dotson  3 , William M Perlstein  4
Affiliations

An Event-Related Potential Investigation of the Effects of Age on Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Function

David A S Kaufman et al. Front Aging Neurosci. .

Abstract

The present study compared young and older adults on behavioral and neural correlates of three attentional networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control). Nineteen young and 16 older neurologically-healthy adults completed the Attention Network Test (ANT) while behavioral data (reaction time and error rates) and 64-channel event-related potentials (ERPs) were acquired. Significant age-related RT differences were observed across all three networks; however, after controlling for generalized slowing, only the alerting network remained significantly reduced in older compared with young adults. ERP data revealed that alerting cues led to enhanced posterior N1 responses for subsequent attentional targets in young adults, but this effect was weakened in older adults. As a result, it appears that older adults did not benefit fully from alerting cues, and their lack of subsequent attentional enhancements may compromise their ability to be as responsive and flexible as their younger counterparts. N1 alerting deficits were associated with several key neuropsychological tests of attention that were difficult for older adults. Orienting and executive attention networks were largely similar between groups. Taken together, older adults demonstrated behavioral and neural alterations in alerting, however, they appeared to compensate for this reduction, as they did not significantly differ in their abilities to use spatially informative cues to aid performance (e.g., orienting), or successfully resolve response conflict (e.g., executive control). These results have important implications for understanding the mechanisms of age-related changes in attentional networks.

Keywords: ANT; ERPs; N1; aging; alerting; attentional networks.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental procedure. (A) The four cue conditions, in which the asterisk cue (*) provides information about the presence (center and double cue) or location (spatial cue) of the upcoming target stimuli; (B) The six target stimuli used in the present experiment; and (C) An example trial (spatial cue—incongruent target stimuli). Adapted from Fan et al. (2002).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Grand average event-related potential (ERP), waveforms of cue- and probe-locked double and no cue trials, revealing group differences on alerting effects on target-related N1 amplitudes (channel PO7).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Grand average ERP waveforms of cue- and probe-locked spatial and center cue trials, revealing similar orienting effects on target-related N1 amplitudes between groups (channel PO7).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Grand average ERP waveforms of target-locked congruent and incongruent trials, revealing similar conflict effects on target-related P300 amplitudes between groups (channel Pz).
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