Research Paper Volume 15, Issue 24 pp 14574—14590

Age-related alterations in the oscillatory dynamics serving verbal working memory processing

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Figure 5. Effect of age on alpha and beta oscillations during the encoding, maintenance, and retrieval phases. Whole-brain linear regression analyses testing for age-related changes in alpha (encoding and retrieval), alpha/beta (maintenance), and beta (retrieval) are shown during the encoding (top), maintenance (middle), and retrieval bottom) phases. During encoding (top), decreases in alpha activity became significantly stronger (i.e., more negative relative to baseline), as a function of age, in prefrontal cortical regions and anterior cingulate. Additionally, age-related alterations in alpha and beta activity during the maintenance period (middle) were found in the left prefrontal cortices, while age-related effects during retrieval (bottom) were observed across a diverse set of brain regions that have been implicated in working memory processing (i.e., frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices). Beyond statistical maps, linear regression plots of peak voxel pseudo-t values are shown as a function of age for encoding and maintenance peaks. Lines of best-fit and 95% CI (shaded area) are overlaid.