Neurobiological basis of age-related deficits in attentional shifting and monitoring

摘要 注意控制指的是个体有选择地注意到与行为相关的刺激并忽略的能力 行为无关的刺激。注意控制至少有两个可分离的组成部分，转移和 监测，每个都是由哺乳动物前额叶皮质中不同的神经网络驱动的。在.期间 正常衰老，人类注意力的转移和监控成分都受到损害，而这些 变化会对生活质量产生负面影响，因为许多基本技能的执行依赖于这些心理因素 流程。神经网络水平的改变导致注意力控制受损，人们对此知之甚少。 这在一定程度上是由于目前缺乏能够为神经数据提供更好的空间和 时间分辨率，以澄清可用于人类的功能成像和脑电数据。最近，我们的 实验室研究表明，年迈的猕猴在某些任务上表现出缺陷。 注意力控制的方式与老年人注意到的方式相似。这里提出的实验 检验猕猴前额叶背外侧皮质抑制性神经元网络的假设 在正常衰老过程中发生改变，导致注意力控制能力下降。慢性胞外四极管 将使用记录设备和新的行为范例来跟踪行为和潜在的 非人灵长类的神经反应。这些研究的结果有可能确定 受衰老影响的特定细胞成分会导致注意力控制能力下降，这是 人类的认知老化。

Abstract Attentional control refers to an individual's ability to selectively attend to behaviorally relevant stimuli and ignore behaviorally irrelevant stimuli. There are at least two separable components to attentional control, shifting and monitoring, which are each driven by different neural networks in the mammalian prefrontal cortex. During normative aging, both the shifting and monitoring components of attention are impaired in humans, and these alterations negatively impact life quality since the execution of many basic skills is dependent on these mental processes. The neural network level changes that lead to impaired attentional control are poorly understood. This is in part due to the current lack of animal models that can provide neural data with superior spatial and temporal resolution to clarify the functional imaging and EEG data available in humans. Recently, our laboratory has shown that aged macaque monkeys experience performance deficits on tasks requiring attentional control in a manner similar to that which is noted in older humans. The experiments proposed here test the hypothesis that networks of inhibitory neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of macaques are altered during normative aging to give rise to declines in attentional control. Chronic extracellular tetrode recording devices and novel behavioral paradigms will be used to track covariation in behavior and underlying neural responses in the non-human primate. The results from these studies have the potential to identify specific cellular components impacted by aging that give rise to declines in attentional control, a hallmark of cognitive aging in humans.