The neural control of bimanual movements in the elderly: Brain regions exhibiting age‐related increases in activity, frequency‐induced neural modulation, and task‐specific compensatory recruitment
- 16 July 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Human Brain Mapping
- Vol. 31 (8), 1281-1295
- https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20943
Abstract
Coordinated hand use is an essential component of many activities of daily living. Although previous studies have demonstrated age-related behavioral deficits in bimanual tasks, studies that assessed the neural basis underlying such declines in function do not exist. In this fMRI study, 16 old and 16 young healthy adults performed bimanual movements varying in coordination complexity (i.e., in-phase, antiphase) and movement frequency (i.e., 45, 60, 75, 90% of critical antiphase speed) demands. Difficulty was normalized on an individual subject basis leading to group performances (measured by phase accuracy/stability) that were matched for young and old subjects. Despite lower overall movement frequency, the old group "overactivated" brain areas compared with the young adults. These regions included the supplementary motor area, higher order feedback processing areas, and regions typically ascribed to cognitive functions (e.g., inferior parietal cortex/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). Further, age-related increases in activity in the supplementary motor area and left secondary somatosensory cortex showed positive correlations with coordinative ability in the more complex antiphase task, suggesting a compensation mechanism. Lastly, for both old and young subjects, similar modulation of neural activity was seen with increased movement frequency. Overall, these findings demonstrate for the first time that bimanual movements require greater neural resources for old adults in order to match the level of performance seen in younger subjects. Nevertheless, this increase in neural activity does not preclude frequency-induced neural modulations as a function of increased task demand in the elderly. Hum Brain Mapp 31:1281-1295, 2010 (C) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Keywords
This publication has 101 references indexed in Scilit:
- Neural pathways mediating bilateral interactions between the upper limbsBrain Research Reviews, 2005
- Task-independent and Task-specific Age Effects on Brain Activity during Working Memory, Visual Attention and Episodic RetrievalCerebral Cortex, 2004
- The insula (Island of Reil) and its role in auditory processingBrain Research Reviews, 2003
- Aging Gracefully: Compensatory Brain Activity in High-Performing Older AdultsNeuroImage, 2002
- Hemispheric asymmetry reduction in older adults: The HAROLD model.Psychology and Aging, 2002
- Modeling Geometric Deformations in EPI Time SeriesNeuroImage, 2001
- Effects of Age on Brain Activation During Auditory-Cued Thumb-to-Index OppositionStroke, 2001
- Rate Dependence of Regional Cerebral Activation during Performance of a Repetitive Motor Task: A PET StudyJournal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, 1996
- Supplementary motor area of the monkey's cerebral cortex: short- and long-term deficits after unilateral ablation and the effects of subsequent callosal sectionJournal of Neuroscience, 1984
- Lesions in supplementary motor area interfere with a monkey's performance of a bimanual coordination taskNeuroscience Letters, 1981