Citation

Sosnoff JJ, Newell KM. Exp. Aging Res. 2011; 37(4): 377-397.

Affiliation

Department of Kinesiology and Community Health and Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Urbana , Illinois , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/0361073X.2011.590754

PMID

21800971

Abstract

Experimental tests of the neural noise hypothesis of aging, which holds that aging-related increments in motor variability are due to increases in white noise in the perceptual-motor system, were conducted. Young (20-29 years old) and old (60-69 and 70-79 years old) adults performed several perceptual-motor tasks. Older adults were progressively more variable in their performance outcome, but there was no age-related difference in white noise in the motor output. Older adults had a greater frequency-dependent structure in their motor variability that was associated with performance decrements. The findings challenge the main tenet of the neural noise hypothesis of aging in that the increased variability of older adults was due to a decreased ability to adapt to the constraints of the task rather than an increment of neural noise per se.

Language: en