Summary: Brain performance can improve in some older adults when they perform a challenging cognitive task while walking.
Source: University of Rochester
Scientists seeking clues to prolonged cognitive vitality have long searched for so-called “super-agers”—people whose brains maintain or even improve function despite aging. New research from the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester identifies older adults whose cognitive performance actually improves when they combine a demanding mental task with walking.
In a study published in NeuroImage, researchers used Mobile Brain/Body Imaging (MoBI) to measure how the brain responds when older adults perform a cognitive inhibition task while either sitting or walking. The team’s goal was to detect neural patterns that mark flexible brain function in aging and to see whether some older individuals show unexpected improvement under dual-task conditions.
“Finding people who show superior brain performance as they age can teach us where to look in the brain and what mechanisms might protect cognition,” said Eleni Patelaki, a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the paper’s first author. “In this study, those differences were invisible from the outside—participants did not know their brains were functioning differently—so neural measurements were essential.”
Walking plus thinking exposes brain flexibility
The research compared performance on the same Go/NoGo response-inhibition task while participants were seated and while they walked on a treadmill. The older cohort included 37 men and women, ages 62 to 79. When tested while sitting, most participants produced similar scores. However, during walking some individuals showed improved cognitive accuracy.
Using MoBI, which records electroencephalographic (EEG) signals along with three-dimensional gait kinematics and behavioral responses, the team identified neural patterns linked to this improvement. “We identified seven older adults who improved when walking,” Patelaki said. “Now that we know where these signatures appear in the brain, we can look for more people with the same profile.”
Those older adults who improved appeared to reallocate frontal brain resources more flexibly during the cognitive task while walking. At the same time, they showed reduced flexibility in other neural systems tied to motor control—an observation that suggests the brain’s adaptive reallocation may favor cognitive components over motor components in these individuals. This pattern highlights that flexibility in neural resource allocation while moving could be an important factor in preserving cognitive function with age.
Similar effects found in young adults
This finding follows earlier work from the same laboratory showing that some healthy young adults also improve cognitive performance when walking. In that cohort, like in the older group, there was no clear external predictor of who would improve; the effect was only apparent when researchers measured brain activity during the dual-task condition. The dual-task paradigm—performing a cognitive task while walking—thus appears to reveal hidden differences in how brains manage competing demands.
Mapping markers of brain health
The study distinguishes two types of neural signatures: those associated with behavioral improvement during walking, and those associated with aging-related changes. Improved accuracy during walking correlated with specific EEG amplitude changes over frontocentral and left prefrontal regions during stages of sensory gating, conflict monitoring, and inhibitory control. These changes are interpreted as markers of cognitive adaptability during movement. Conversely, aging correlated with slower treadmill speeds and attenuated EEG modulations over frontal, parietooccipital, and centroparietal regions—patterns tied to motor aspects of inhibition.
Crucially, older adults who paradoxically improved while walking showed evidence of both patterns: neural signatures of behavioral improvement in cognitive components alongside aging-related signatures in motor components. This suggests that some aging brains retain the capacity to flexibly reallocate resources for cognitive demands even if motor-related flexibility declines.
“These neural markers could have clinical value,” said Ed Freedman, Ph.D., associate professor of Neuroscience and senior author on the study. “They may help assess disease progression in neurodegenerative conditions, evaluate treatment effects, and eventually identify individuals at higher risk for age-related cognitive decline before clear symptoms appear.”
Additional authors on the study include John Foxe, Ph.D., Emma Mantel, and George Kassis of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. Recordings were conducted at the University of Rochester Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (UR-IDDRC), and the work was supported by the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience Pilot Program.
About this aging, cognition, and exercise research news
Author: Press Office, University of Rochester
Source: University of Rochester
Contact: Press Office – University of Rochester
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Original Research: Open access. “Paradoxical improvement of cognitive control in older adults under dual-task walking conditions is associated with more flexible reallocation of neural resources: A Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) study” by Eleni Patelaki et al., NeuroImage. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120098
Abstract
Paradoxical improvement of cognitive control in older adults under dual-task walking conditions is associated with more flexible reallocation of neural resources: A Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) study
Combining walking with a demanding cognitive task typically reduces performance on one or both tasks. Yet recent work in young adults found that many participants paradoxically improved on a Go/NoGo inhibition task when walking. The current study extended that work to older adults to determine whether healthy older individuals can also show improvements during dual-task walking.
MoBI recorded EEG, 3D gait kinematics, and behavioral responses while participants completed the Go/NoGo task seated and while walking on a treadmill. The combined sample included 34 young adults and 37 older adults. Across ages, increased response accuracy during walking related to slower response times and to amplitude changes in EEG over frontocentral and left prefrontal regions during stages of sensory gating (N1), conflict monitoring (N2), and inhibitory control implementation (P3). These neural changes align with the cognitive components of inhibition and serve as signatures of behavioral improvement.
Independent of accuracy, aging correlated with slower treadmill walking speeds and attenuated EEG modulations over left-dominant frontal, parietooccipital, and centroparietal regions during inhibitory processing—neural signatures associated with motor components of inhibition and interpreted as aging-related changes.
Older adults who improved during walking exhibited both sets of signatures, indicating preserved neural flexibility for cognitive processing even as motor-related flexibility declined. Distinct neural markers of behavioral improvement and aging may help identify super-agers and individuals at risk for cognitive decline due to aging or neurodegenerative disease.