Journal of PHYSIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Online ISSN : 1880-6805
Print ISSN : 1880-6791
ORIGINALS
Eye Movement Performance and Prefrontal Hemodynamics during Saccadic Eye Movements in the Elderly
Katsuo FujiwaraNaoe KiyotaKenji KunitaMidori YasukawaKaoru MaedaXingyun Deng
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2010 Volume 29 Issue 2 Pages 71-78

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Abstract

No previous study has investigated age-related changes in prefrontal hemodynamics during saccade tasks in a large number of elderly adults. The purpose of this study was to evaluate prefrontal activity related to the performance of anti-saccade in the elderly using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Ninety-six elderly adults and 22 young adults performed pro- and anti-saccade tasks. Measures included reaction times of both saccades, error rate during anti-saccade, and concentration of oxyhemoglobin (Δoxy-Hb) in the prefrontal cortex during both saccades. Saccade performance, especially error rate, was significantly poorer in the elderly than the young. In the elderly, error rates were widely distributed from 5% to 100%. In about half (48%) of the elderly, error rates were distributed under the mean+3 standard deviations (48%) for the young, and Δoxy-Hb did not differ significantly from that in the young. Elderly subjects whose anti-saccade reaction time was over the regression line (of reaction time in anti-saccade to that in pro-saccade in the young)+2 standard errors showed a strong positive correlation (r=0.79) between Δoxy-Hb and error rate, as did those whose error rate exceeded 48%. In the elderly subjects whose error rates exceeded 90%, Δoxy-Hb was extremely small and deviated greatly from the correlation between Δoxy-Hb and error rate. Based on these findings, we propose a method of evaluating inhibitory function and attention allocation in anti-saccade performance, which is mainly related to the prefrontal cortex, in the elderly, using NIRS.

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© 2010 Japan Society of Physiological Anthropology
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