Brain Network Analysis Reveals Age-Related Differences in Topological Reorganization During Vigilance Decline

IF 5.2 2区 医学 Q2 ENGINEERING, BIOMEDICAL
Lingyun Gao;Rui Zhang;Mengru Xu;Yi Sun;Gang Li;Yu Sun
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Abstract

To mitigate the economic losses and safety risks caused by reduced alertness of individuals in the context of an aging workforce, mental fatigue among the elderly is an issue worthy of in-depth exploration. Despite convergent studies on cognitive aging, the differential alterations in brain network topology between the elderly and young individuals during vigilance decline remain unclear. Here, a prolonged 30-min psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) was employed to induce mental fatigue, where both behavioral performance and electroencephalography (EEG) data were collected from healthy elderly (n =30) and young participants (n =40). Subsequently, EEG functional connectivity was constructed and the differences in network topological properties between the two groups were quantitatively evaluated based on global and nodal metrics. Both groups an exhibited age-independent significant decline in behavioral performance with time on task. Moreover, age-related dysconnectivity pattern was revealed over a wide frequency range ( $1-45$ Hz) in the elderly group, which further developed toward less optimal network architecture. Specifically, significant deficits in nodal efficiency were revealed in most of the brain regions, and the frontal area exhibited significant age-by-time interaction effect, which was attributed to a significant decline in the elderly group. Statistically significant correlation between behavioral and network metrics was also found. Overall, our results provide some of the first quantitative insights for revealing the neural mechanisms of age differences during mental fatigue, which may contribute to the rational arrangement of personnel in real-world scenarios with high alertness demands.
脑网络分析揭示警觉性下降过程中拓扑重组的年龄相关差异。
为了减轻劳动力老龄化背景下个体警觉性下降带来的经济损失和安全风险,老年人的精神疲劳是一个值得深入探讨的问题。尽管对认知衰老的研究趋于一致,但在警觉性下降期间,老年人和年轻人大脑网络拓扑结构的差异变化仍不清楚。本研究采用延长30分钟的精神运动警戒任务(PVT)诱导精神疲劳,并收集健康老年人(n = 30)和年轻参与者(n = 40)的行为表现和脑电图(EEG)数据。随后,构建脑电功能连通性,并基于全局和节点指标定量评估两组之间网络拓扑特性的差异。两组的行为表现都表现出与年龄无关的显著下降。此外,老年组在较宽的频率范围内(1 ~ 45 Hz)显示出与年龄相关的网络连接障碍模式,并进一步向较不理想的网络结构发展。具体而言,大部分脑区显示出显著的节效率缺陷,额叶区表现出显著的年龄-时间相互作用效应,导致老年组显著下降。行为指标和网络指标之间也发现了统计学上显著的相关性。总的来说,我们的研究结果为揭示精神疲劳期间年龄差异的神经机制提供了一些定量的见解,这可能有助于在高警觉性需求的现实场景中合理安排人员。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
8.60
自引率
8.20%
发文量
479
审稿时长
6-12 weeks
期刊介绍: Rehabilitative and neural aspects of biomedical engineering, including functional electrical stimulation, acoustic dynamics, human performance measurement and analysis, nerve stimulation, electromyography, motor control and stimulation; and hardware and software applications for rehabilitation engineering and assistive devices.
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