Forming intentions successfully: Differential compensational mechanisms of adolescents and old adults

INTRODUCTION: Forming an intention is a key aspect of prospective memory, i.e., the ability to encode, retain, and later realize an intention with a delay of minutes, hours or days. Behavioural and neurophysiological findings from both prospective and retrospective memory research suggest that the efficiency of encoding processes is reduced at both ends of the lifespan and that neural generators underlying successful encoding might differ in childhood and old age. Hence, the present study investigates compensational neural mechanisms during the encoding of intentions in adolescents and old adults compared to young adults. METHODS: We compared Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and their source localization in 14 adolescents (11-13 years), 14 young adults (18-25 years), and 14 old adults (64-79 years) in a prospective memory task that was embedded in a semantic categorization task. RESULTS: Our data revealed three event-related modulations that differentiate between conditions (i.e., ongoing activity and successful intention formation trials) and groups. Source localizations of these modulations with standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) revealed compensational activations in adolescents and old adults compared to young adults in successful intention formation trials: while adolescents showed a higher activation of secondary occipital regions in the time window of 500-1200 msec with a maximum around 800 msec, old adults activated prefrontal regions to a greater extent beginning at 700 msec, persisting until 1200 msec and expanding to middle temporal regions. CONCLUSION: For a successful encoding of intentions adolescents and old adults recruit more neural generators than young adults. More importantly, the pattern of these compensational activations is different when comparing adolescents with young adults and old adults with young adults. These differences are discussed with regard to differential maturational changes in the brain

Accurate Judgment by Dementia Patients of Neutral Faces with Respect to Trustworthiness and Valence

The present study investigates whether dementia patients can make accurate social and affective judgments of face stimuli. We used verbal material as a control condition to see whether dementia patients are capable of using the rating scales the same way as controls. We compared the trustworthiness, valence, and arousal ratings of dementia patients with those from a healthy control group. Participants rated pictures of young and old, female and male neutral faces and two fictitious biographies. The results indicate that dementia patients make accurate judgments of unfamiliar faces with respect to trustworthiness and valence. Results concerning arousal ratings suggest that the corresponding scale might be difficult to use for dementia patients and possibly for older participants as well

Doctoral dissertation management at the University of Granada

La Universidad de Granada (UGR) cuenta desde 2005 con el Proyecto DIGIBUG, un modelo que mejora la visibilidad y accesibilidad de su producción científica, con el objetivo de acercarla a los investigadores, doctorandos, estudiantes y a la sociedad en general, ofreciendo una nueva perspectiva de difusión, utilización, citación y seguimiento de las diferentes líneas de investigación existentes en la UGR.Since 2005 the University of Granada (UGR) has implemented the DIGIBUG Project, which aims to improve visibility of and access to its scientific output so as to bring it closer to researchers, doctorate and undergraduate students and society in general, providing a new way of disseminating, using, citing and following up the different lines of enquiry at the UGR

Age-related differences in the temporal dynamics of prospective memory retrieval: a lifespan approach

The efficiency of prospective memory (PM) typically increases from childhood to young adulthood and then decreases in later adulthood. The current study used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine the development of the neural correlates of processes associated with the detection of a PM cue, switching from the ongoing activity to the prospective task, retrieval of the intention from memory or task set configuration, and strategic monitoring of the environment. The study included 99 participants that were 7.5 to 83 years of age. Slow wave activity related to strategic monitoring was reliable across the lifespan suggesting that all ages were able to allocate attentional resources to facilitate PM. Additionally, components of the ERPs related to cue detection, switching, and task configuration were reliable across the lifespan, suggesting that similar processes contribute to PM at all ages. In children, PM errors may have resulted from a decoupling of processes supporting cue detection and switching from the ongoing activity to the prospective element of the task. In younger and older adults, PM errors appeared to result from the failure to detect PM cues in the environment. These findings lead to the conclusion that different processes may contribute to variation in PM across the lifespan

Emotionen und Gedächtnis bei Patienten mit Alzheimer-Demenz

Aim of this review is to examine the interactions between emotion and memory in Alzheimer's disease and to discuss resources of these patients. On the basis of neuropathological findings in Alzheimer's disease and neuroanatomical structures of emotional processing, we provide an overview of findings (a) on the emotional memory effect and (b) on emotions as memory content in Alzheimer's Disease. We discuss future research questions and consequences for nonpharmacological therapy of Alzheimer's disease

Memory Complaints and Prospective Memory Performance across the Lifespan

The frequency of prospective and retrospective memory failures from six age groups was gathered using the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ). Objective performance measures were obtained with a laboratory prospective memory task. Findings revealed more prospective than retrospective memory complaints in all age groups except in young children. While overall reported memory failures were similar in the adult groups, fewer failures were reported for the two children groups. This might either be explained by a self-other rater bias or by the PRMQ not being well suited to assess memory failures of children. No correlations of complaints with performance measures were found in either age group except in older children for whom surprisingly more complaints were related to better performance

Prospective memory in schizophrenia: The impact of varying retrospective-memory load

The present study investigated event-based prospective memory in individuals with schizophrenia (n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 23). The retrospective-memory load was varied to disentangle the relative contributions of the retrospective and prospective components on prospective-memory functioning. A generalized prospectivememory deficit in schizophrenia emerged, with significant impairment evident even when retrospective-memory demands were minimal. Exploratory analyses suggest that both the retrospective and the prospective components contribute to the prospective-memory deficit in schizophrenia

Plasticity of prospective memory through a familiarization intervention in old adults

ABSTRACT Younger adults consistently outperform older adults in laboratory prospective memory tasks. This study examines the effectiveness of an intervention that familiarizes older adults with the sequence of ongoing events to compensate their reduced prospective memory performance. We compared performance and electrophysiological measures of an intervention group (N = 20, 69-83 years) receiving a familiarization intervention to an individually matched control group (N = 20). As ongoing activity a 2-back working memory task was administered. Neural correlates were studied using event related potentials (ERPs) and source localization (standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography). Behavioural data showed faster reaction times in correct prospective trials and fewer prospective false alarms in the familiarization intervention group. ERP analyses displayed differential patterns for the two groups and source localization measures distinctively presented group differences in prospective memory trials with the control group recruiting more resources for a successful prospective memory performance. Together our data support the hypothesis that the familiarity with the sequence of ongoing events increases prospective memory performance and that this might be based on a higher efficiency of attentional monitoring resources and evaluation processes in the intervention group

Neural correlates of prospective memory across the lifespan

Item does not contain fulltextOverview Behavioural data reveal an inverted U-shaped function in the efficiency of prospective memory from childhood to young adulthood to later adulthood. However, prior research has not directly compared processes contributing to age-related variation in prospective memory across the lifespan, hence it is unclear whether the same factors explain the ‘rise and fall’ of prospective remembering from childhood to later adulthood. The present study examined this question using a paradigm that allowed us to consider the behavioural and neural correlates of processes associated with the prospective and retrospective components of prospective memory. Methods We compared 14 adolescents, 14 young adults, and 14 old adults in a paradigm where the prospective memory task was embedded in a semantic categorization task. Results The behavioural data revealed an inverted U-shaped function with adolescents and old adults performing poorly relative to young adults. Analyses of the error data revealed that different processes may have contributed to failures of prospective memory in adolescents and older adults. This finding was supported by age differences in ERP-components for cue detection and post-retrieval processes. Additionally, source localization using LORETA revealed different patterns of neural recruitment for adolescents and older adults relative to younger adults. Conclusion Our findings demonstrate that adolescents and older adults show different patterns of behavioural errors and neural recruitment for successful prospective remembering indicating that different processes may contribute to the ‘rise and fall’ of prospective memory across the lifespan