Healthy aging delays the neural processing of face features relevant for behavior by 40 ms.

ABSTRACT: Fast and accurate face processing is critical for everyday social interactions, but it declines and becomes delayed with age, as measured by both neural and behavioral responses. Here, we addressed the critical challenge of understanding how aging changes neural information processing mechanisms to delay behavior. Young (20-36 years) and older (60-86 years) adults performed the basic social interaction task of detecting a face versus noise while we recorded their electroencephalogram (EEG). In each participant, using a new information theoretic framework we reconstructed the features supporting face detection behavior, and also where, when and how EEG activity represents them. We found that occipital-temporal pathway activity dynamically represents the eyes of the face images for behavior

SUBMITTER: Jaworska K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7268067 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature