Neurocognitive changes in magnitude and fact-retrieval processes underlying arithmetic with higher age

• Applicant: Dr. Christina Artemenko
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 513458453

In our modern aging society, individuals must handle numbers and calculations well into old age. In recent years, numerous studies have explored the neurocognitive processes underlying mental arithmetic in children and young adults. What is missing, however, is a systematic investigation of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying arithmetic in older adults. Given that deficits in arithmetic skills have a detrimental impact on their ability to live independently, it is essential to better understand the underlying mechanisms of these skills in older adults. The current project addresses this issue, contributing to the emerging field of neurocognitive aging effects in arithmetic. In line with the current models in numerical cognition, we suggest that arithmetic processing is distributed in a magnitude-related and a fact-retrieval network in the brain. If components in these networks change – due to aging – the efficiency and characteristics of the processes underlying arithmetic might change. Crucially, aging seems to differently affect the components of arithmetic, ranging from deficits in domain-general cognitive processes, such as processing speed and working memory, to preservation of domain-specific number magnitude processing and experience-based fact knowledge, as observed in behavioral research. By using neuroimaging to systematically investigate arithmetic in the elderly brain, we aim to identify deficits, preservation, and compensation of arithmetic skills in older as compared to younger adults. The current project investigates the mechanisms underlying arithmetic in the elderly brain by combining behavioral and neuroimaging methods (fNIRS, fMRI). With these methods, the proposed project aims to detect whether – and, if so, which – components of domain-general and domain-specific processing in mental arithmetic differ between younger and older adults. The results will not only advance understanding of the demands of mental arithmetic during aging but will also contribute to current models in the field by evaluating age-related changes in a magnitude-related and a fact-retrieval network of arithmetic processing.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Elise Klein