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> Top-down Modulation
Cognitive Aging
The initial series of experiments exploring changes in top-down modulation in normal aging utilized the same working memory paradigm previously used to define enhancement and suppression indices in young adults. The fMRI version of this experiment revealed that while healthy older adults (above 60 y.o.) were as effective at enhancing activity for relevant information in visual brain regions as young adults, they were unable to successfully suppress activity for irrelevant information (Gazzaley, et al. Nature Neuroscience 2005) [pdf/media coverage]. Furthermore, the degree to which older adults failed to suppress the distracting information correlated with their impaired short-term memory of the relevant information, revealing an interaction between their attention and memory abilities. Encouragingly, a subgroup of the older population did not experience this suppression deficit and accompanying memory impairment, opening the road for studies of successful aging. A recently completed EEG version of this study revealed that suppression abilities are not entirely abolished with aging, but are delayed in time due to a decline in neural processing speed (under review).
Current research in the lab is following up on these finding by evaluating changes in neural networks that underlie top-down modulation alterations with aging, specifically the impact of different varieties of distraction on memory abilities.
> Top-down Modulation
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