Files and links (1)
Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Relationships between GABA + and Glx concentrations with age and inhibition in healthy older adults
Brain Structure and Function, Vol.230(8), pp.1-14
2025
PMID: 41014379
Abstract
Inhibition represents a core executive function which underlies the ability to suppress interfering or distracting stimuli, thereby building resistance against task-irrelevant information. However, the impact of ageing on inhibitory functioning and the role of neuroplasticity - largely driven by predominant excitatory (glutamatergic) and inhibitory (GABAergic) neurochemicals – remains poorly understood. This study investigated age relationships with neurochemical concentrations (GABA + and Glx) and their associations with inhibitory sub-components in healthy ageing. Participants completed three inhibition tasks (flanker, Stroop, go/no-go), each measuring a different sub-component process, via the PsyToolkit platform. MRS data were acquired in the sensorimotor (SM1; n = 71, mean age (SD) = 68.3 (± 9.7) years, 39 females) and prefrontal (PFC; n = 58, mean age (SD) = 67.6 (± 9.6) years, 30 females) regions using a HERMES sequence and analysed using OSPREY’s pipeline. After correcting for gender and education, semi-partial correlations revealed no significant relationships between age and GABA + or Glx concentrations in either the SM1 or PFC. Furthermore, after correcting for age, gender and education, partial correlations identified a significant negative relationship between SM1 Glx concentrations and go/no-go error rates, such that greater concentrations of SM1 Glx were associated with greater go/no-go accuracy. The null age-neurochemical results suggest that GABA + and Glx may not uniformly decline during healthy ageing, indicating a more nuanced relationship than previously reported. In addition, our neurochemical-behavioural findings provide neurochemically-and-spatially specific evidence that SM1 Glx concentrations may be important for response inhibition. This result indicates a role for the glutamatergic system in supporting inhibition, independent of age.
Details
- Title
- Relationships between GABA + and Glx concentrations with age and inhibition in healthy older adults
- Authors
- Ciara Treacy (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Thompson InstituteSophie C Andrews - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Thompson InstituteJacob M Levenstein - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Thompson Institute
- Publication details
- Brain Structure and Function, Vol.230(8), pp.1-14
- Publisher
- Springer
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1007/s00429-025-03017-0
- ISSN
- 1863-2661; 1863-2653
- PMID
- 41014379
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- Data analysis/experiment code and materials are openly available at the project’s Open Science Framework page (osf.io/pbr9f). Data sharing has not yet been approved by the UniSC Human Research Ethics Committee, but the data can be made available upon reasonable request by contacting the corresponding author.
- Grants
- Naturalistic-fMRI Functional Connectivity Biomarkers Define Subtypes of Healthy Brain Aging and Cognitive Profiles, 0980028321, University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia, Sunshine Coast) - UniSC
- Organisation Unit
- Healthy Ageing Research Cluster; Thompson Institute
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991164737902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
39 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Web Of Science research areas
- Anatomy & Morphology
- Neurosciences
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites