Beta-band neural variability reveals age-related dissociations in human working memory maintenance and deletion.

Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101183755 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1545-7885 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 15449173 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS Biol Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science, [2003]-

Memory, Short-Term*/physiology ; Aging*/physiology; Humans ; Aged ; Adult ; Female ; Male ; Young Adult ; Middle Aged ; Beta Rhythm/physiology ; Brain/physiology ; Cognition/physiology ; Aged, 80 and over

Maintaining and removing information in mind are 2 fundamental cognitive processes that decline sharply with age. Using a combination of beta-band neural oscillations, which have been implicated in the regulation of working memory contents, and cross-trial neural variability, an undervalued property of brain dynamics theorized to govern adaptive cognitive processes, we demonstrate an age-related dissociation between distinct working memory functions-information maintenance and post-response deletion. Load-dependent decreases in beta variability during maintenance predicted memory performance of younger, but not older adults. Surprisingly, the post-response phase emerged as the predictive locus of working memory performance for older adults, with post-response beta variability correlated with memory performance of older, but not younger adults. Single-trial analysis identified post-response beta power elevation as a frequency-specific signature indexing memory deletion. Our findings demonstrate the nuanced interplay between age, beta dynamics, and working memory, offering valuable insights into the neural mechanisms of cognitive decline in agreement with the inhibition deficit theory of aging.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Wen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

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Date Created: 20240911 Date Completed: 20240911 Latest Revision: 20240914

20240914

PMC11389900

10.1371/journal.pbio.3002784

39259713