Resting-state neural dynamics changes in older adults with post-COVID syndrome and the modulatory effect of cognitive training and sex.

Post-COVID syndrome manifests with numerous neurological and cognitive symptoms, the precise origins of which are still not fully understood. As females and older adults are more susceptible to developing this condition, our study aimed to investigate how post-COVID syndrome alters intrinsic brain dynamics in older adults and whether biological sex and cognitive training might modulate these effects, with a specific focus on older females. The participants, aged between 60 and 75 years, were divided into three experimental groups: healthy old female, post-COVID old female and post-COVID old male.

Investigating the Effect of Contextual Cueing with Face Stimuli on Electrophysiological Measures in Younger and Older Adults.

Extracting repeated patterns from our surroundings plays a crucial role in contextualizing information, making predictions, and guiding our behavior implicitly. Previous research showed that contextual cueing enhances visual search performance in younger adults. In this study, we investigated whether contextual cueing could also improve older adults' performance and whether age-related differences in the neural processes underlying implicit contextual learning could be detected.

Exploring the role of working memory gate opening process in creativity: An ERP study using the reference-back paradigm.

We investigated the relationship between the gate opening process of working memory and an individual's proficiency in divergent (DT) and convergent thinking (CT) using the reference-back paradigm. Event-related potentials and reaction times were measured across groups with varying DT (N = 40, 27.35 ± 5.

Mechanisms of spatial contextual cueing in younger and older adults.

The contextual cueing effect is the phenomenon observed when response time (RT) becomes faster in visual search in repeated context compared with a new one. In the present study, we explored whether the mechanisms involved in the effect are age dependent. We investigated it in younger (N = 20, 12 women, 21.

Investigating the involvement of cognitive control processes in innovative and adaptive creativity and their age-related changes.

Introduction: Based on the two-factor model of creativity, two distinct types of creative problem solving can be differentiated: innovative ("do things differently") and adaptive ("do things better"). Flexible cognitive control is a crucial concept in connection with both general and specific styles of creativity: innovative problem-solving benefits from broader attention and flexible mental set shifting; while adaptive creativity relies on focused attention and persistent goal-oriented processes. We applied an informatively cued task-switching paradigm which is suitable for measuring different cognitive control processes and mechanisms like proactive and reactive control.

The effect of ambiguous and unambiguous stimuli on target processing in less creative and more creative groups.

In the present study our aim was to examine how the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli changes with creativity and aging, and how this processing influences task-relevant responding. We hypothesized that the degree in which irrelevant stimuli attract attention and occupy cognitive capacity, thereby interfering with the motor task, depends not only on the stimuli's saliency, but also on the participants' creativity and age. We investigated event-related potentials (ERP) and behavioural data in four groups - more creative and less creative younger (18-30 years) and older (60-75 years) adults - by presenting unambiguous and ambiguous portrait paintings and photos of faces in equal proportions before and after the target stimuli.

The modulatory effect of adaptive task-switching training on resting-state neural network dynamics in younger and older adults.

With increasing life expectancy and active aging, it becomes crucial to investigate methods which could compensate for generally detected cognitive aging processes. A promising candidate is adaptive cognitive training, during which task difficulty is adjusted to the participants' performance level to enhance the training and potential transfer effects. Measuring intrinsic brain activity is suitable for detecting possible distributed training-effects since resting-state dynamics are linked to the brain's functional flexibility and the effectiveness of different cognitive processes.

Does Creativity Influence Visual Perception? - An Event-Related Potential Study With Younger and Older Adults.

We do not know enough about the cognitive background of creativity despite its significance. Using an active oddball paradigm with unambiguous and ambiguous portrait paintings as the standard stimuli, our aim was to examine whether: creativity in the figural domain influences the perception of visual stimuli; any stages of visual processing; or if healthy aging has an effect on these processes. We investigated event related potentials (ERPs) and applied ERP decoding analyses in four groups: younger less creative; younger creative; older less creative; and older creative adults.

Older Adults Automatically Detect Age of Older Adults' Photographs: A Visual Mismatch Negativity Study.

The human face is one of the most frequently used stimuli in vMMN (visual mismatch negativity) research. Previous studies showed that vMMN is sensitive to facial emotions and gender, but investigations of age-related vMMN differences are relatively rare. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the models' age in photographs were automatically detected, even if the photographs were not parts of the ongoing task.

Older Adults Encode Task-Irrelevant Stimuli, but Can This Side-Effect be Useful to Them?

We studied whether, due to deteriorating inhibitory functions, older people are more likely to process irrelevant stimuli; and if so, could they later use this information better than young adults. In the study phase of our experiment, a Posner-type gaze-cued version of a Simon task was performed in which we presented task-irrelevant cues, where faces or patches with either left- or right-looking dots for the pupil of the eye preceded the task to press a button congruent or incongruent with the presentation side of the target stimulus. In the follow-up test phase, participants completed an unexpected facial recognition test.

Age Effects on Distraction in a Visual Task Requiring Fast Reactions: An Event-Related Potential Study.

We investigated the effects of distractors in older and younger participants in choice and simple reaction time tasks with concurrent registration of event-related potentials. In the task the participants had to prevent a disk from falling into a bin after a color or luminosity change (target stimuli). Infrequently, task-irrelevant stimuli (schematic faces or threatening objects) were superimposed on the target stimuli (distractors), or the bin disappeared which required no response (Nogo trials).

Can irrelevant but salient visual cues compensate for the age-related decline in cognitive conflict resolution?-An ERP study.

We studied a Posner-type gaze-cued version of a Simon task to characterize age-related changes in visuospatial attention and inhibitory control. Earlier results had indicated that the direction of gaze is a strong social cue that speeds response times; so we wondered whether, as a task-irrelevant stimulus, it could compensate for age-related impairment of inhibitory processes in the elderly. Our results assessed the Simon effect by: reaction time, error rate, the P3 component and the lateralized readiness potential (LRP).

The effect of hand motion and object orientation on the automatic detection of orientation: A visual mismatch negativity study.

We investigated the effects of voluntary hand movements and continuously present objects on the automatic detection of deviant stimuli in a passive oddball paradigm. The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials (ERPs) was measured as the index of automatic deviant detection. The stimuli were textures consisting of parallel, oblique bars with frequent (standard) and infrequent (deviant) orientation.

Chemotherapy drugs cyclophosphamide, cisplatin and doxorubicin induce germ cell loss in an in vitro model of the prepubertal testis.

Long term survival rates for childhood cancers is steadily increasing, however cancer survivors can experience fertility problems as a consequence of chemotherapy treatment. This is particularly problematic for young boys, for whom no fertility preservation treatment is yet established. Here, we have determined the effects on prepubertal mouse testis of three commonly used chemotherapy drugs; cyclophosphamide (using its active metabolite phosphoramide mustard), cisplatin and doxorubicin, exposing testicular fragments to a clinically relevant range of concentrations in vitro.

The role of GluN2B-containing NMDA receptors in short- and long-term fear recall.

N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors are crucial synaptic elements in long-term memory formation, including the associative learning of fearful events. Although NMDA blockers were consistently shown to inhibit fear memory acquisition and recall, the clinical use of general NMDA blockers is hampered by their side effects. Recent studies revealed significant heterogeneity in the distribution and neurophysiological characteristics of NMDA receptors with different GluN2 (NR2) subunit composition, which may have differential role in fear learning and recall.