Age-related spatiotemporal reorganization during response inhibition

•Older adults showed increased brain activations during response inhibition.•The increased brain activations were separated between the N2 and P3 periods.•Increased activations were in precentral and postcentral gyri during N2 period.•Increased activations were in DLPFC and inferior frontal gyrus during P3 period.•Our results suggested a spatiotemporal brain reorganization due to normal aging.

As a key high-level cognitive function in human beings, response inhibition is crucial for adaptive behavior. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that older individuals exhibit greater neural activation than younger individuals during response inhibition tasks. This finding has been interpreted within a neural compensation framework, in which additional neural resources are recruited in response to age-related cognitive decline. Although this interpretation has received empirical support, the precise event-related temporal course of this age-related compensatory neural response remains unexplored. In the present study, we conducted source analysis on inhibition-related ERP components (i.e., N2 and P3) that were recorded while healthy younger and older adults participated in a visual Go/NoGo task. We found that older adults showed increased source current densities of the N2 and P3 components than younger adults, which support previous hemodynamic findings. Further, such age-related differences in neural activation were successfully separated between the N2 and P3 periods by source localization analysis. Interestingly, the increased activations in older adults were primarily localized to the right precentral and postcentral gyri during the N2 period, which shifted to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the right inferior frontal gyrus during the P3 period. Taken together, our results clearly illustrate the spatiotemporal dynamics of age-related functional brain reorganization, and further specify the exact temporal course at the millisecond scale by which age-related compensatory neural responses occur during response inhibition.