Multiple domain-general assessments of cognitive functions in elite athletes: contrasting evidence for the influence of expertise, sport type and sex.

Converging evidence has shown that domain-general cognitive abilities, especially executive functions (EF), tend to be superior in sport experts. However, recent studies have questioned this cognitive advantage and found inconsistent findings when comparing sport type and sex. This study aimed to compare the impact of sport expertise, sport type, and sex on various domains of cognitive functions. Two hundred and thirty elite athletes (nFemale=124, nMale=106) representing three sport categories (Team [n=91], Precision-skill dependent [n=63], and Speed-strength [n=76] sports) were assessed using a computerized neuropsychological test battery including tests of EF (working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and planning), as well as tests of selective and sustained attention. T-scores and raw values were used to analyse performance through t-tests and ANCOVA with age as covariate. Athletes demonstrated better performance than the normative mean on 5 out of 11 cognitive test variables (p<0.005). However, their performance fell within the average range when considering the results along a normative scale, except for sustained attention and working memory where they performed just above average (<1 SD). There was a significant main effect of sport category on only one EF variable (p=0.003). Males performed significantly faster than females on motor reaction time measures of attention and inhibition (all p<0.001). In this study, the 'expert advantage' on domain-general cognitive tests was less prominent when utilizing a normative scale and controlling for age or speed-accuracy trade-offs, except for sustained attention and working-memory. Cognitive functions did not appear to differ meaningfully based on athletes' sport type or sex.

Increase of posterior connectivity in aging within the Ventral Attention Network: A functional connectivity analysis using independent component analysis.

Multiple studies have found neurofunctional changes in normal aging in a context of selective attention. Furthermore, many articles report intrahemispheric alteration in functional networks. However, little is known about age-related changes within the Ventral Attention Network (VAN), which underlies selective attention. The aim of this study is to examine age-related changes within the VAN, focusing on connectivity between its regions. Here we report our findings on the analysis of 27 participants' (13 younger and 14 older healthy adults) BOLD signals as well as their performance on a letter-matching task. We identified the VAN independently for both groups using spatial independent component analysis. Three main findings emerged: First, younger adults were faster and more accurate on the task. Second, older adults had greater connectivity among posterior regions (right temporoparietal junction, right superior parietal lobule, right middle temporal gyrus and left cerebellum crus I) than younger adults but lower connectivity among anterior regions (right anterior insula, right medial superior frontal gyrus and right middle frontal gyrus). Older adults also had more connectivity between anterior and posterior regions than younger adults. Finally, correlations between connectivity and response time on the task showed a trend toward connectivity in posterior regions for the older group and in anterior regions for the younger group. Thus, this study shows that intrahemispheric neurofunctional changes in aging also affect the VAN. The results suggest that, in contexts of selective attention, posterior regions increased in importance for older adults, while anterior regions had reduced centrality.

Coping with task demand in aging using neural compensation and neural reserve triggers primarily intra-hemispheric-based neurofunctional reorganization.

It has been proposed that cognitive reserve is supported by two neural mechanisms: neural compensation and neural reserve. The purpose of this study was to test how these neural mechanisms are solicited in aging in the context of visual selective attention processing and whether they are inter- or intra-hemispheric. Younger and older participants were scanned using fMRI during a visual letter-matching task with two attentional load levels. The results show that in the low-load condition, the older participants activated frontal superior gyri bilaterally; these regions were not activated in the younger participants, in accordance with the compensation mechanism and the Posterior-Anterior Shift in Aging (PASA) phenomenon. However, when task demand increased, the older participants recruited the same regions (parietal) as the younger ones, showing the involvement of a similar neural reserve mechanism. This result suggests that successful cognitive aging relies on the concurrent use of both neural compensation and neural reserve in high-demand tasks, calling on the frontoparietal network. In addition, the finding of intra-hemispheric-based neurofunctional reorganization with a PASA phenomenon for all attentional load levels suggests that the PASA phenomenon is a function more of compensation than of reserve.