Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jan;3(1):105-120.
doi: 10.1038/s43587-022-00341-6. Epub 2023 Jan 12.

Exposure to negative socio-emotional events induces sustained alteration of resting-state brain networks in older adults

Collaborators, Affiliations
Free article

Exposure to negative socio-emotional events induces sustained alteration of resting-state brain networks in older adults

Sebastian Baez-Lugo et al. Nat Aging. 2023 Jan.
Free article

Abstract

Basic emotional functions seem well preserved in older adults. However, their reactivity to and recovery from socially negative events remain poorly characterized. To address this, we designed a 'task-rest' paradigm in which 182 participants from two independent experiments underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while exposed to socio-emotional videos. Experiment 1 (N = 55) validated the task in young and older participants and unveiled age-dependent effects on brain activity and connectivity that predominated in resting periods after (rather than during) negative social scenes. Crucially, emotional elicitation potentiated subsequent resting-state connectivity between default mode network and amygdala exclusively in older adults. Experiment 2 replicated these results in a large older adult cohort (N = 127) and additionally showed that emotion-driven changes in posterior default mode network-amygdala connectivity were associated with anxiety, rumination and negative thoughts. These findings uncover the neural dynamics of empathy-related functions in older adults and help understand its relationship to poor social stress recovery.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Mather, M. The affective neuroscience of aging. Annu. Rev. Psychol. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033540 (2015).
    1. Reiter, A. M. F., Kanske, P., Eppinger, B. & Li, S.-C. The aging of the social mind—differential effects on components of social understanding. Sci Rep. 7, 11046 (2017). - DOI
    1. Urry, H. L. & Gross, J. J. Emotion regulation in older age. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 19, 352–357 (2010). - DOI
    1. Mather, M. & Carstensen, L. L. Aging and motivated cognition: the positivity effect in attention and memory. Trends Cogn. Sci. 9, 496–502 (2005).
    1. Aldao, A., Nolen-Hoeksema, S. & Schweizer, S. Emotion-regulation strategies across psychopathology: a meta-analytic review. Clin. Psychol. Rev. 30, 217–237 (2010). - DOI

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources