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Age-Related Task Sensitivity of Frontal EEG Entropy During Encoding Predicts Retrieval

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Abstract

Age-related declines in memory may be due in part to changes in the complexity of neural activity in the aging brain. Electrophysiological entropy provides an accessible measure of the complexity of ongoing neural activity. In the current study, we calculated the permutation entropy of the electroencephalogram (EEG) during encoding of relevant (to be learned) and irrelevant (to be ignored) stimuli by younger adults, older adults, and older cognitively declined adults. EEG entropy was differentially sensitive to task requirements across groups, with younger and older controls exhibiting greater control of encoding-related activity than older declined participants. Task sensitivity of frontal EEG during encoding predicted later retrieval, in line with previous evidence that cognitive decline is associated with reduced ability to self-initiate encoding-related processes.

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Acknowledgements

DOH was supported by a Grant from ERASMUS and by sabbatical leave from the School of Psychology at NUI Galway. SS was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the Research Group FOR 868Computational Modeling of Behavioral, Cognitive, and Neural Dynamics. Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article. The software used for this study will be provided at: http://people.physik.hu-berlin.de/schinkel.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, NUI Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland

    Denis O’Hora & Michael J. Hogan

  2. Departments of Physics and Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Stefan Schinkel

  3. College of Engineering and Informatics, NUI Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland

    Liam Kilmartin

  4. School of Nursing and Human Sciences, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland

    Michael Keane

  5. Exploratory Medical Sciences, Neurology CEDD/CPDM/NFSP North, Third Avenue, Harlow, Essex, CM19 5AW, UK

    Robert Lai & Neil Upton

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  1. Denis O’Hora
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Correspondence to Denis O’Hora.

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O’Hora, D., Schinkel, S., Hogan, M.J. et al. Age-Related Task Sensitivity of Frontal EEG Entropy During Encoding Predicts Retrieval. Brain Topogr 26, 547–557 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-013-0278-x

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