Neural correlates of age-related changes in dual-task performance

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Healthy aging is associated with performance decline in various cognitive domains, among them the simultaneous execution of two activities ("dual-tasking"). The neurobiological basis of such age-related changes still is, however, largely unknown. The aim of this project is to characterize age-related changes in cortical networks that are associated with the simultaneous management of multiple sensory, cognitive and motor demands in dual tasks. Previous studies showed both age-related decreases and increases in regional brain activity during single cognitive tasks. For dual tasks, however, it is open (i) whether age-related hyperactivity constitutes beneficial compensation or detrimental neural dedifferentiation, (ii) to what extent the neural changes are actually due to age or rather to performance level, and (iii) how they relate to amodal versus modality-specific interference between two parallel reaction processes. These questions will be answered by comparing between dual and single tasks in a large sample of young and older adults (n = 50 per age group). The investigation of cortical segregation as well as structural, functional and effective connectivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging and fiber tractography will lead to network models of age-related changes in cognitive control systems and their interaction with sensory and motor networks and provide a deeper understanding of changes in brain-behavior relationships in later life.