Characterizing neural and behavioral signatures of normal cognition using TD-fNIRS Across the Adult Lifespan

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Julien Dubois¹, Ryan M. Field¹, Erin M. Koch¹, Zahra M. Aghajan¹, Naomi Miller¹, Katherine L. Perdue¹, Moriah Taylor¹; ¹Kernel, Culver City, CA, USA

Probing different domains of cognition from a neural and behavioral perspective is of interest to both scientific and clinical communities: from unravelling mechanisms underlying cognitive function and dysfunction to using this understanding to inform and enhance clinical assessment and intervention. Using a portable time domain functional near infrared spectroscopy (TD-fNIRS) system, the Kernel Flow, we are measuring brain activation and behavior in 200 healthy adults—with an age range of 40 to 80 years old, targeting 50% female— while they perform a set of internally developed tasks adapted from commonly-used cognitive experiments and neuropsychiatric assessments. These tasks include the verbal fluency test, the N-back task, and a resting-state task, as in our previous study aimed at classifying Mild Cognitive Impairment in an older population. We added versions of the Trail Making Test, the Culture Fair Intelligence Test, delayed verbal recall, and visuospatial recall for a more thorough neuropsychological assessment. Each participant is assessed twice at a 1 month interval to evaluate reliability. In the first 50 participants, behavioral performance varied as a function of cognitive load as expected in each task, and as a function of age, validating the battery of tasks we chose and their implementation. Furthermore, brain hemodynamic responses derived from general linear models (GLMs) yielded patterns of activations at the group level that matched the literature as well as our previous work. This work is a stepping stone to a larger, multi-site data collection effort aimed at establishing normative neural and behavioral ranges for cognitive function.

Topic Area: METHODS: Neuroimaging