Contingency Awareness, Aging, and the Parietal Lobe

Overview

Journal Neurobiol Aging

Publisher Elsevier

Specialties Geriatrics
Neurology
Physiology

Date 2020 Apr 4

PMID 32241582

Authors

Dominic T Cheng

Alyssa M Katzenelson

Monica L Faulkner

John F Disterhoft

John M Power

John E Desmond

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Contingency awareness is thought to rely on an intact medial temporal lobe and also appears to be a function of age, as older subjects tend to be less aware. The current investigation used functional magnetic resonance imaging, transcranial direct current stimulation, and eyeblink classical conditioning to study brain processes related to contingency awareness as a function of age. Older adults were significantly less aware of the relationship between the tone-airpuff pairings than younger adults. Greater right parietal functional magnetic resonance imaging activation was associated with higher levels of contingency awareness for younger and older subjects. Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the right parietal lobe led to lower levels of awareness in younger subjects without disrupting conditioned responses. Older adults exhibited hyperactivations in the parietal and medial temporal lobes, despite showing no conditioning deficits. These findings strongly support the idea that the parietal cortex serves as a substrate for contingency awareness and that age-related disruption of this region is sufficient to impair awareness, which may be a manifestation of some form of naturally occurring age-related neglect.

References

Campolattaro M, Freeman J . Examination of bilateral eyeblink conditioning in rats. Behav Neurosci. 2009; 123(6):1346-52. PMC: 2830096. DOI: 10.1037/a0017314. View

Weidemann G, Satkunarajah M, Lovibond P . I Think, Therefore Eyeblink: The Importance of Contingency Awareness in Conditioning. Psychol Sci. 2016; 27(4):467-75. PMC: 4831030. DOI: 10.1177/0956797615625973. View

Sparing R, Thimm M, Hesse M, Kust J, Karbe H, Fink G . Bidirectional alterations of interhemispheric parietal balance by non-invasive cortical stimulation. Brain. 2009; 132(Pt 11):3011-20. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awp154. View

Knuttinen M, Power J, Preston A, Disterhoft J . Awareness in classical differential eyeblink conditioning in young and aging humans. Behav Neurosci. 2001; 115(4):747-57. DOI: 10.1037//0735-7044.115.4.747. View

Thimm M, Fink G, Sturm W . Neural correlates of recovery from acute hemispatial neglect. Restor Neurol Neurosci. 2008; 26(6):481-92. View

Bedard G, Barnett-Cowan M . Impaired timing of audiovisual events in the elderly. Exp Brain Res. 2015; 234(1):331-40. DOI: 10.1007/s00221-015-4466-7. View

Buchel C, Dolan R, Armony J, Friston K . Amygdala-hippocampal involvement in human aversive trace conditioning revealed through event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. J Neurosci. 1999; 19(24):10869-76. PMC: 6784963. View

Tabbert K, Stark R, Kirsch P, Vaitl D . Dissociation of neural responses and skin conductance reactions during fear conditioning with and without awareness of stimulus contingencies. Neuroimage. 2006; 32(2):761-70. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.03.038. View

Setti A, Finnigan S, Sobolewski R, Mclaren L, Robertson I, Reilly R . Audiovisual temporal discrimination is less efficient with aging: an event-related potential study. Neuroreport. 2011; 22(11):554-8. DOI: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e328348c731. View

10.

Manns J, Clark R, SQUIRE L . Single-cue delay eyeblink conditioning is unrelated to awareness. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2002; 1(2):192-8. DOI: 10.3758/cabn.1.2.192. View

11.

Cheng D, Disterhoft J, Power J, Ellis D, Desmond J . Neural substrates underlying human delay and trace eyeblink conditioning. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008; 105(23):8108-13. PMC: 2430367. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0800374105. View

12.

Miller M, Li L, Weiss C, Disterhoft J, Wyrwicz A . A fiber optic-based system for behavioral eyeblink measurement in a MRI environment. J Neurosci Methods. 2004; 141(1):83-7. DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2004.05.015. View

13.

Lovibond P, Liu J, Weidemann G, Mitchell C . Awareness is necessary for differential trace and delay eyeblink conditioning in humans. Biol Psychol. 2011; 87(3):393-400. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.05.002. View

14.

Fierro B, Brighina F, Oliveri M, Piazza A, La Bua V, Buffa D . Contralateral neglect induced by right posterior parietal rTMS in healthy subjects. Neuroreport. 2000; 11(7):1519-21. View

15.

Cacciaglia R, Pohlack S, Flor H, Nees F . Dissociable roles for hippocampal and amygdalar volume in human fear conditioning. Brain Struct Funct. 2014; 220(5):2575-86. DOI: 10.1007/s00429-014-0807-8. View

16.

Tabbert K, Merz C, Klucken T, Schweckendiek J, Vaitl D, Wolf O . Influence of contingency awareness on neural, electrodermal and evaluative responses during fear conditioning. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2010; 6(4):495-506. PMC: 3150860. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq070. View

17.

Knight D, Cheng D, Smith C, Stein E, Helmstetter F . Neural substrates mediating human delay and trace fear conditioning. J Neurosci. 2004; 24(1):218-28. PMC: 6729570. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0433-03.2004. View

18.

Folstein M, Folstein S, McHugh P . "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J Psychiatr Res. 1975; 12(3):189-98. DOI: 10.1016/0022-3956(75)90026-6. View

19.

Finkbiner R, Woodruff-Pak D . Classical eyeblink conditioning in adulthood: effects of age and interstimulus interval on acquisition in the trace paradigm. Psychol Aging. 1991; 6(1):109-17. DOI: 10.1037//0882-7974.6.1.109. View

20.

Ko M, Han S, Park S, Seo J, Kim Y . Improvement of visual scanning after DC brain polarization of parietal cortex in stroke patients with spatial neglect. Neurosci Lett. 2008; 448(2):171-4. DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2008.10.050. View