Hyperexcitability in Aging Is Lost in Alzheimer's: What Is All the Excitement About?

Abstract

Neuronal hyperexcitability has emerged as a potential biomarker of late-onset early-stage Alzheimer's disease (LEAD). We hypothesize that the aging-related posterior cortical hyperexcitability anticipates the loss of excitability with the emergence of impairment in LEAD. To test this hypothesis, we compared the behavioral and neurophysiological responses of young and older (ON) normal adults, and LEAD patients during a visuospatial attentional control task. ONs show frontal cortical signal incoherence and posterior cortical hyper-responsiveness with preserved attentional control. LEADs lose the posterior hyper-responsiveness and fail in the attentional task. Our findings suggest that signal incoherence and cortical hyper-responsiveness in aging may contribute to the development of functional impairment in LEAD.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s; ERPs; aging; excitability; vision.