PhD Scientific Days 2025

Poster Session I. - Q: Neurosciences

Correlations of Resting-state Fractal Connectivity and N-back Working Memory Task Performance

Előadó neve

Dr. Czoch Ákos

Neptun code

FCLSZR

Előadó munkahelye

Élettani Intézet

Előadó telefonszáma

+36 20 282 5728

Előadó e-mail címe

czoch.akos@semmelweis.hu

Az előadás címe

Correlations of Resting-state Fractal Connectivity and N-back Working Memory Task Performance

Szerző(k) neve és munkahelye

Ákos Czoch¹, Frigyes Sámuel Rácz²

1: Élettani Intézet
2: Department of Neurology, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States of America

Bemutatás módja

Poszter

Szekció

Poster Session I. - Q: Neurosciences

Language of the presentation

English

Preferred session

Neurosciences

Összefoglaló szövege

Introduction: Cognitive decline (CD) occurs with aging, even without neurodegenerative disease, but its mechanisms remain unclear. Fractal connectivity (FrC), which integrates connectivity and fractal analysis, has emerged as a measure of long-term brain interactions linked to aging and cognition. Aims: While FrC has been linked to mental workload, its role in resting-state activity and working memory in healthy aging remains unclear. This study examined whether resting-state FrC relates to n-back task performance in older adults. Methods: Nineteen healthy elderly (HE) adults and twenty-four young control (YC) participants completed resting-state EEG recordings (eyes-open and eyes-closed) and a n-back working memory task (the participants completed other tasks as well, but in this study we only analyzed n-back results). FrC networks were estimated using multiple-resampling cross-spectral analysis (MRCSA). A machine learning approach was applied to identify network features that distinguished the two age groups. Results: Compared to YCs, HE participants exhibited increased response times and reduced task accuracy, along with diminished auto- and cross-spectral scaling exponents across widespread cortical areas. In HE individuals, stronger long-range frontoparietal FrC was inversely correlated with working memory performance and sustained attention accuracy. Performance on n-back working memory tasks did not show significant correlations with FrC in either eyes-open or eyes-closed conditions, suggesting that n-back performance may involve distinct neural mechanisms or task-related dynamics not captured during resting-state. Conclusion: Despite only marginal group differences and no significant correlations in n-back performance, resting-state FrC showed marked alterations, highlighting the need to further investigate the disconnect between resting neural dynamics and working memory. These findings suggest that not all cognitive domains are equally captured by resting-state FrC, underscoring its domain-specific relevance in aging. Funding: I acknowledge funding from ÚNKP-22-3-1-SE-25, Ministry of Innovation and Technology; National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, and further support from the SE250+ Scholarship (121389/DIDIT/2022), (38846/DIDIT/2024) and (51294/DIDIT/2025) Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.

University

Semmelweis University

Supervisor

Dr. Rácz Frigyes Sámuel

Publication of my abstract

I do not give consent to the publication of my abstract on the website of the congress.

phd.section.field

in doctoral studies after complex exam (PhD)

Kind

Szabad

Status

elfogadva

Accepted presentation method

poszter

Előadás fájl jóváhagyás

nem rendelkezett róla

Előadó

6870

Start

16:42

End

16:48