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Semantic processing remains relatively preserved during healthy aging, but the mechanisms are poorly understood. Herein, we use dynamic functional mapping based on magnetoencephalography to examine the neural oscillations serving semantic processing across the adult lifespan (N = 154; 21–87 years). Task-related oscillatory dynamics were imaged using a beamformer and whole-brain linear mixed-effects (LME) models were calculated with age and task condition (semantically-related or -unrelated) as factors. LMEs revealed significant age-by-condition interactions on alpha and beta activity in multiple regions, which generally reflected stronger responses with increasing age and/or in the semantically-related condition across regions (p values < 0.005, corrected). Follow-up mediation analyses of these interaction clusters indicated that left perisylvian alpha responses suppressed the effect of age on verbal fluency (p = 0.014), with larger conditional differences in this region supporting preserved fluency with increasing age. Our findings provide novel insight on age-related neurophysiological adaptations that support preservation of semantic processing.
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1 Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/01q9r1072) (GRID: grid.414583.f) (ISNI: 0000 0000 8953 4586)
2 Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/01q9r1072) (GRID: grid.414583.f) (ISNI: 0000 0000 8953 4586); College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/00thqtb16) (GRID: grid.266813.8) (ISNI: 0000 0001 0666 4105)
3 College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/00thqtb16) (GRID: grid.266813.8) (ISNI: 0000 0001 0666 4105)
4 Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/01q9r1072) (GRID: grid.414583.f) (ISNI: 0000 0000 8953 4586); Department of Pharmacology & Neuroscience, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/05wf30g94) (GRID: grid.254748.8) (ISNI: 0000 0004 1936 8876)
5 Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Boys Town, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/01q9r1072) (GRID: grid.414583.f) (ISNI: 0000 0000 8953 4586); College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/00thqtb16) (GRID: grid.266813.8) (ISNI: 0000 0001 0666 4105); Department of Pharmacology & Neuroscience, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA (ROR: https://ror.org/05wf30g94) (GRID: grid.254748.8) (ISNI: 0000 0004 1936 8876)