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Decomposing age effects in EEG alpha power

Tröndle, Marius; Popov, Tzvetan; Pedroni, Andreas; Pfeiffer, Christian; Barańczuk-Turska, Zofia; Langer, Nicolas (2023). Decomposing age effects in EEG alpha power. Cortex, 161:116-144.

Abstract

Increasing life expectancy is prompting the need to understand how the brain changes during healthy aging. Research utilizing electroencephalography (EEG) has found that the power of alpha oscillations decrease from adulthood on. However, non-oscillatory (aperiodic) components in the data may confound results and thus require re-investigation of these findings. Thus, the present report analyzed a pilot and two additional independent samples (total N = 533) of resting-state EEG from healthy young and elderly individuals. A newly developed algorithm was utilized that allows the decomposition of the measured signal into periodic and aperiodic signal components. By using multivariate sequential Bayesian updating of the age effect in each signal component, evidence across the datasets was accumulated. It was hypothesized that previously reported age-related alpha power differences will largely diminish when total power is adjusted for the aperiodic signal component.

First, the age-related decrease in total alpha power was replicated. Concurrently, decreases of the intercept and slope (i.e. exponent) of the aperiodic signal component were observed. Findings on aperiodic-adjusted alpha power indicated that this general shift of the power spectrum leads to an overestimation of the true age effects in conventional analyses of total alpha power. Thus, the importance of separating neural power spectra into periodic and aperiodic signal components is highlighted. However, also after accounting for these confounding factors, the sequential Bayesian updating analysis provided robust evidence that aging is associated with decreased aperiodic-adjusted alpha power. While the relation of the aperiodic component and aperiodic-adjusted alpha power to cognitive decline demands further investigation, the consistent findings on age effects across independent datasets and high test-retest reliabilities support that these newly emerging measures are reliable markers of the aging brain. Hence, previous interpretations of age-related decreases in alpha power are reevaluated, incorporating changes in the aperiodic signal.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:04 Faculty of Medicine > Neuroscience Center Zurich
06 Faculty of Arts > Institute of Psychology
07 Faculty of Science > Institute of Mathematics
08 Research Priority Programs > Dynamics of Healthy Aging
Dewey Decimal Classification:150 Psychology
Scopus Subject Areas:Social Sciences & Humanities > Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Social Sciences & Humanities > Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Life Sciences > Cognitive Neuroscience
Uncontrolled Keywords:Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Language:English
Date:1 April 2023
Deposited On:28 Jun 2023 15:09
Last Modified:29 Dec 2024 02:38
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0010-9452
OA Status:Hybrid
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.02.002
PubMed ID:36933455
Project Information:
  • Funder: FP7
  • Grant ID: 211267
  • Project Title: ACSEPT - Actinide reCycling by SEParation and Transmutation
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