TY - JOUR
T1 - Aging and motor variability
T2 - A test of the neural noise hypothesis
AU - Sosnoff, Jacob J.
AU - Newell, Karl M.
N1 - Received 26 August 2009; accepted 24 January 2010. The study was supported in part by grants from the National Institute on Aging (T32-AG00048; 1 R03 AG023259). J.J.S. was supported by a Kligman Research Fellowship. Address correspondence to Jacob J. Sosnoff, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 301 Freer Hall, 906 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1080/0361073X.2011.590754
DO - 10.1080/0361073X.2011.590754
M3 - Article
C2 - 21800971
AN - SCOPUS:79961033356
SN - 0361-073X
VL - 37
SP - 377
EP - 397
JO - Experimental Aging Research
JF - Experimental Aging Research
IS - 4
ER -