Task-related brain oscillations in normal aging

Ming-Chung Ho, Chin-Fei Huang, Chia-Yi Chou, Yu-Te Lin, Ching-Sen Shih, Ming-Ting Wu, Chao-Ming Hung, Chia-Ju Liu

Department of Environmental and Occupational Safety and Hygiene, Graduate Institute of Environmental Management, Tajen University, Pingtung, Chinese Taipei.
Department of Physics, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei.
Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Shipai, Chinese Taipei.
Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei.
Section of General Surgery, E-DA Hospital, Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei.
Section of Neurology, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei.

DOI: 10.4236/health.2012.429118                

Abstract

During the past few years, many researchers have demonstrated the importance of the age-related changes in spontaneous electroencephalography. However, very little research on of the event-related responses of oscillations connections has been used to examine the changes during normal aging. The aim of the present study was to investigate age-related changes of task-related brain oscillations, which include spectral power and omega-complexity. We hypothesized that the power and omega-complexity of the brain are affected by age-related changes, which could be observed in this study. The samples included young and healthy elderly groups. Compared to young participants, elderly participants were found to have increased power in anterior area and decreased power in posterior area, and have shown a decreased power in the alpha-1 (7 - 10 Hz) and alpha-2 (10 - 13 Hz) bands and an increased power in the delta (1 - 4 Hz) band. Elderly participants were found to have increased omega-complexity in the anterior and posterior brain areas, and have shown an increased omega-complexity in the alpha-2, beta-1 (13 - 18 Hz), and beta-2 (18 - 30 Hz) bands. The findings in this study suggest that power and omega-complexity changes in task-specific neural activity may potentially be used to assess age-related decline in the brain.

Keywords

Normal Aging; Power; Omega-Complexity

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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