Mapping neural mechanisms subserving executive control processes across the adult lifespan: a functional network perspective.

映射在成人一生中促进执行控制过程的神经机制：功能网络视角。

• 批准号: 402522-2012
• 负责人: Turner, Gary
• 金额: $ 2.11万
• 依托单位: York University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=573309
• 关键词: Mapping; neural; mechanisms; subserving; executive

Executive control functions are high-level cognitive processes that enable humans to direct and sustain their behaviour towards attainment of current and future goals. In everyday life executive control is necessary to maintain and update these goals; inhibit responses to distractions in the environment; and to flexibly adapt behaviour in the context of rapidly changing environmental contingencies. It is now increasingly understood that executive control is the product of interactions amongst many brain regions. As executive control is known to decline across the adult lifespan, it follows that developmental changes within and between functional brain networks may be a neural mechanism underlying changes in cognition from younger to older adulthood. There is preliminary evidence of lifespan developmental changes in functional connectivity within these networks, yet there is little empirical support to date for the hypothesis that alterations within and/or between these networks is related to behavioural changes in executive control capacity. This proposal will (i) characterize lifespan changes occurring at the level of large-scale functional brain networks using an interacting network model of goal-directed cognition (ii) investigate whether these changes are related to behavioural performance on measures of specific executive control processes (working memory, inhibition and task-switching) and (iii) explore whether these functional brain changes are associated with developmental changes in brain structure over the life course.

执行控制功能是高级认知过程，使人类能够指导和维持他们的行为，以实现当前和未来的目标。在日常生活中，执行控制对于维持和更新这些目标、抑制对环境干扰的反应以及在快速变化的环境突发事件中灵活地调整行为是必要的。现在越来越多的人认识到，执行控制是许多大脑区域之间相互作用的产物。 众所周知，执行控制在整个成年期都会下降，因此功能性大脑网络内部和之间的发育变化可能是从年轻到老年认知变化的神经机制。有初步的证据表明，这些网络内的功能连接的寿命发展变化，但很少有实证支持的假设，这些网络内和/或之间的变化是有关的行为变化，执行控制能力。该提案将（i）使用目标导向认知的交互网络模型来表征在大规模功能性大脑网络水平上发生的寿命变化（ii）调查这些变化是否与特定执行控制过程的行为表现有关（工作记忆，抑制和任务转换）和（iii）探索这些功能性脑变化是否与生命过程中脑结构的发育变化有关。