Aging modulates the impact of cognitive interference subtypes on dynamic connectivity across a distributed motor network.

Abstract

Research has shown age-related declines in cognitive control in the context of interference, but these studies have focused on frontoparietal networks and less is known about impacts on motor response-related dynamics in the face of distractors. Thus, we examined whether healthy aging affected connectivity between attention networks and motor circuitry using a multisource interference task and magnetoencephalography in 72 healthy-aging participants (28-63 years-old). Our results indicated stronger beta connectivity with increasing age between bilateral primary motor (M1) and occipital cortices, as well as stronger gamma fronto-motor connectivity during flanker-type interference. Regarding Simon-type interference, stronger beta interactions were observed between left M1 and right temporal and right M1 and left parietal with increasing age. Finally, the superadditivity effect (flanker + Simon presented simultaneously) indicated weaker beta connectivity between right M1 and left premotor with increasing age. These findings suggest exhaustion of age-related compensatory adaptations in the fronto-parieto-motor network with greater interference.