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

在现代社会中，个人普遍被信息超载。为了确保效率，我们需要不断地关注与任务相关的信息，抑制与任务无关的信息。申请人和同事之前的工作表明，抑制能力(即抑制无关信息的能力)随年龄的增长而下降。例如，老年人在背景噪音中很难集中注意力阅读。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导致的记忆表现中断，但令人惊讶的是，我们对如何帮助老年人处理干扰知之甚少。经验证据表明，处理情绪信息的能力会随着年龄的增长而保持甚至提高，最近的一项发现表明，情绪刺激可以减少对年轻人的干扰。受此启发，我从一个新的角度来确定，老年人的抑制缺陷是否可以通过刺激的情绪唤醒和专注于情绪的认知训练来缓解。该项目将分三个阶段进行。在第一阶段，将收集行为数据，以检查刺激的情绪唤醒是否缓解了年轻人和老年人在执行记忆任务时的抑制。在第二阶段，将使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)技术收集神经成像数据，以检查年轻人和老年人抑制和情绪处理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老化大脑中抑制的影响提供新的见解。最后，在第三阶段，我打算开发一个以情绪为重点的训练方案，以帮助老年人处理干扰。总之，这项拟议的研究为理解情绪信息中抑制干扰能力的年龄差异提供了一种新的方法。这一研究结果将对认知衰老和神经衰老理论做出重大贡献，并将为衰老研究领域提供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.