Exploring the neural basis of age-related decline in working memory is vital in our aging society. Previous electroencephalographic studies suggested that the contralateral delay activity (CDA) may be insensitive to age-related decline in lateralized visual working memory (VWM) performance. Instead, recent evidence indicated that task-induced alpha power lateralization decreases in older age. However, the relationship between alpha power lateralization and age-related decline of VWM performance remains unknown, and recent studies have questioned the validity of these findings due to confounding factors of the aperiodic signal. Using a sample of 134 participants, we replicated the age-related decrease of alpha power lateralization after adjusting for the aperiodic signal. Critically, the link between task performance and alpha power lateralization was found only when correcting for aperiodic signal biases. Functionally, these findings suggest that age-related declines in VWM performance may be related to the decreased ability to prioritize relevant over irrelevant information. Conversely, CDA amplitudes were stable across age groups, suggesting a distinct neural mechanism possibly related to preserved VWM encoding or early maintenance.

中文翻译：

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分解与年龄相关的视觉工作记忆下降的神经生理学基础

在我们的老龄化社会中，探索与年龄相关的工作记忆衰退的神经基础至关重要。先前的脑电图研究表明，对侧延迟活动（CDA）可能对与年龄相关的侧化视觉工作记忆（VWM）表现下降不敏感。相反，最近的证据表明，任务引起的阿尔法功率偏侧化随着年龄的增长而减少。然而，α 功率偏侧化与 VWM 性能与年龄相关的下降之间的关系仍然未知，并且最近的研究由于非周期性信号的混杂因素而质疑这些发现的有效性。使用 134 名参与者的样本，我们在调整非周期性信号后复制了与年龄相关的 α 功率偏侧化下降。至关重要的是，只有在校正非周期性信号偏差时才发现任务绩效和 alpha 功率偏侧化之间的联系。从功能上讲，这些发现表明，与年龄相关的 VWM 表现下降可能与优先考虑相关信息而不是不相关信息的能力下降有关。相反，CDA 振幅在各个年龄组中都很稳定，这表明可能与保留的 VWM 编码或早期维护有关的独特神经机制。