The role of relational integration in neurocognitive ageing – behavioural and neuroimaging studies comparing healthy younger and older adults

• Applicant: Dr. Lena Schumacher
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 491441322

As we age, our ability for complex thought processes are affected as are the brain areas needed to carry out these complex thoughts. One cornerstone of human complex thinking is relational integration (RI), that is, the ability to jointly consider multiple or higher-order relations between elements. RI enables abstract thought processes based on judging the structural rather than perceptual similarity of elements (e.g., snowflake relates to blizzard as soldier relates to army). As the brain areas critical for RI are also affected by healthy ageing, RI can be expected to play an important role in understanding how ageing affects our ability for complex, abstract thought. However, both the cognitive processes and the functional as well as structural brain changes that underlie potential age-related deficits in RI are not well understood. To achieve a better characterisation of the role of relational integration in neurocognitive ageing, this project will carry out two studies. Study 1 examines healthy participants between 20 and 80 years using behavioural RI and additional cognitive tasks to (1) replicate first findings of an impairment in RI with older age, (2) to investigate the nature of age deficits in RI by delineating the direct impact of age on RI from its indirect impact through more basic cognitive processes that are also known to decline with age (working memory capacity, interference control, and processing speed), and (3) to assess whether decrements in RI underlie age effects in higher cognitive tasks of planning and reasoning. Study 2 uses functional and structural brain imaging to compare healthy young (25‒30 years) and old (70‒75 years) adults (1) to assess for the first time age differences in brain activity during RI and (2) to examine the age-dependent relationship between brain activity, behavioural performance, and brain structure so as to evaluate the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie these assumed activation differences (e.g., older brains may work less efficiently by recruiting RI-specific brain areas already at a low level of cognitive demand or structural changes in the older brain can be compensated by activating additional brain regions).If the results of this project do indeed identify RI as a distinct age-sensitive cognitive function that furthermore accounts for age deficits in other higher cognitive functions and that is related to functional and structural neural differences in older compared to younger adults, this would significantly extend our understanding of how healthy ageing affects the human ability for complex, abstract thought both on a cognitive and neural level.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Dr. Benjamin Rahm; Professor Dr. Josef Martin Unterrainer