Neural similarity across task load relates to cognitive reserve and brain maintenance measures on the Letter Sternberg task: a longitudinal study.

ABSTRACT: The aging process is characterized by change across several measures that index cognitive status and brain integrity. In the present study, 54 cognitively-healthy younger and older adults, were analyzed, longitudinally, on a verbal working memory task to investigate the effect of brain maintenance (i.e., cortical thickness) and cognitive reserve (i.e., NART IQ as proxy) factors on a derived measure of neural efficiency. Participants were scanned using fMRI while presented with the Letter Sternberg task, a verbal working memory task consisting of encoding, maintenance and retrieval phases, where cognitive load is manipulated by varying the number of presented items (i.e., between one and six letters). Via correlation analysis, we looked at region-level and whole-brain relationships between

SUBMITTER: Argiris G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9925407 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature