The interaction between emotion and inhibition in the aging brain: behavioural and neuroimaging studies

在现代社会中，个人通常信息超载。为了确保效率，我们需要不断地将注意力集中在与任务相关的信息上，并抑制与任务无关的信息。申请人及其同事先前的工作表明抑制的年龄相关性下降（即，抑制不相关信息的能力）。例如，老年人在背景噪音中难以集中注意力阅读。与这一发现相呼应的是，老年人抑制与分散注意力的信息相关的大脑活动的能力较弱。尽管有明确的证据表明，与年龄相关的抑制缺陷及其随之而来的记忆表现的破坏，但我们对如何帮助老年人处理干扰却知之甚少。受经验证据的启发，处理情绪信息的能力随着年龄的增长而保持甚至提高，以及最近的一项发现，即情绪刺激可以减少年轻人的干扰，我采取了一种新的视角来确定老年人的抑制缺陷是否可以通过刺激的情绪唤醒和以情绪为中心的认知训练来调节。该项目将分三个阶段进行。在第1阶段，将收集行为数据，以检查刺激的情绪唤起是否会缓和年轻人和老年人执行记忆任务时的抑制。在第2阶段，将使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）技术收集神经成像数据，以检查年轻人和老年人的两个神经系统之间的相互作用。这些研究将为理解情绪对衰老大脑抑制的影响提供新的见解。最后，在第三阶段，我打算制定一个以情绪为中心的训练方案，以帮助老年人处理干扰。总之，这项研究代表了一种新的方法来理解年龄差异在抑制情绪信息干扰的能力。本研究的发现将对认知和神经衰老理论做出重大贡献，并将在衰老研究领域带来创新和有效的实验设计和范式。

In modern society, individuals are generally overloaded with information. To ensure efficiency, we need to constantly focus attention on task-relevant information and inhibit task-irrelevant information. Previous work by the applicant and colleagues suggests an age-related decline in inhibition (i.e., the ability to inhibit irrelevant information). For example, older adults have trouble concentrating on reading amidst background noises. Echoing this finding, older adults are less able to suppress their brain activity associated with distracting information. Despite the clear evidence for an age-related deficit in inhibition and its consequent disruption in memory performance, we know surprisingly little about how to aid older adults to deal with interference. Inspired by the empirical evidence that the ability to process emotional information preserves or even improves with age, and a recent finding that emotional stimuli can reduce interference in younger adults, I take a novel perspective to determine whether older adults' deficits in inhibition could be moderated by the emotional arousal of the stimuli and through emotion-focused cognitive training. The project will be carried out in three phases. In Phase 1, behavioural data will be collected to examine whether the emotional arousal of stimuli moderates inhibition in performing memory tasks for younger and older adults. In Phase 2, neuroimaging data will be collected using the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique to examine the interaction between the two neural systems underlying inhibition and emotional processing in younger and older adults. These studies will provide novel insights into the understanding of the effects of emotion on inhibition in the aging brain. Finally, in Phase 3, I intend to develop an emotion-focused training protocol to help older adults deal with interference. In sum, the proposed research represents a novel approach to understand age differences in the ability to inhibit interference amidst emotional information. The findings of this research will make significant contributions to the theories of cognitive and neural aging, and will lead to innovative and effective experimental designs and paradigms in the area of aging research.