Arousal and valence play key roles in emotional perception, with normal aging leading to changes in the neural substrates supporting valence processing. The objective of this study was to investigate normal age-related changes in the neural substrates of emotional arousal processing. Twenty-three young and 23 older, healthy women underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging as they viewed images which were neutral or positive in valence and which varied in arousal level from low to high. Using a parametric modulation approach, we examined how the blood oxygen-level dependent signal varied with single trial subjective ratings of valence and arousal, and whether this differed with age. In accordance with previous studies we found that the older group showed greater activation in response to positive valence, in the left amygdala, left middle temporal gyrus and right lingual gyrus. In contrast however, they showed reduced reactivity to emotional arousal, in occipital and temporal visual cortices bilaterally, the left inferior parietal cortex, and the supplementary motor area bilaterally. This study represents the first of its kind to clearly dissociate how aging affects the neural correlates of emotional arousal and valence. The changes in arousal processing may in part be mediated by the functional reorganization evident in the aging brain, such as reduced activation of the posterior cortices as described by the posterior-anterior shift in ageing (PASA) effect.
Pubmed ID: 22892310 RIS Download
Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.
THIS RESOURCE IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE. Documented on January 4, 2023.Consortium that developed brief, standardized and reliable procedures for the evaluation and diagnosis of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias of the elderly. These procedures included data forms, flipbooks, guidebooks, brochures, instruction manuals and demonstration tapes, which are now available for purchase. The CERAD assessment material can be used for research purposes as well as for patient care. CERAD has developed several basic standardized instruments, each consisting of brief forms designed to gather data on normal persons as well as on cognitively impaired or behaviorally disturbed individuals. Such data permit the identification of dementia based on clinical, neuropsychological, behavioral or neuropathological criteria. Staff at participating CERAD sites were trained and certified to administer the assessment instruments and to evaluate the subjects enrolled in the study. Cases and controls were evaluated at entry and annually thereafter including (when possible) autopsy examination of the brain to track the natural progression of AD and to obtain neuropathological confirmation of the clinical diagnosis. The CERAD database has become a major resource for research in Alzheimer's disease. It contains longitudinal data for periods as long as seven years on the natural progression of the disorder as well as information on clinical and neuropsychological changes and neuropathological manifestations.
View all literature mentionsSoftware package for analysis of brain imaging data sequences. Sequences can be a series of images from different cohorts, or time-series from same subject. Current release is designed for analysis of fMRI, PET, SPECT, EEG and MEG.
View all literature mentionsSoftware library of image analysis and statistical tools for fMRI, MRI and DTI brain imaging data. Include registration, atlases, diffusion MRI tools for parameter reconstruction and probabilistic taractography, and viewer. Several brain atlases, integrated into FSLView and Featquery, allow viewing of structural and cytoarchitectonic standard space labels and probability maps for cortical and subcortical structures and white matter tracts. Includes Harvard-Oxford cortical and subcortical structural atlases, Julich histological atlas, JHU DTI-based white-matter atlases, Oxford thalamic connectivity atlas, Talairach atlas, MNI structural atlas, and Cerebellum atlas.
View all literature mentionsSet of (mostly) C programs that run on X11+Unix-based platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.) for processing, analyzing, and displaying functional MRI (FMRI) data defined over 3D volumes and over 2D cortical surface meshes. AFNI is freely distributed as source code plus some precompiled binaries.
View all literature mentionsProgramming language for all operating systems that lets users work more quickly and integrate their systems more effectively. Often compared to Tcl, Perl, Ruby, Scheme or Java. Some of its key distinguishing features include very clear and readable syntax, strong introspection capabilities, intuitive object orientation, natural expression of procedural code, full modularity, exception-based error handling, high level dynamic data types, extensive standard libraries and third party modules for virtually every task, extensions and modules easily written in C, C (or Java for Python, or .NET languages for IronPython), and embeddable within applications as a scripting interface.
View all literature mentions