Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) dual-tasking datasets (response inhibition while walking): Young adults

Combining walking with a demanding cognitive task is traditionally
expected to elicit decrements in gait and/or cognitive task performance.
However, it was recently shown that, in a cohort of young adults, most
participants improved performance when walking was added to performance of
a Go/NoGo response inhibition task. The present study aims to extend these
previous findings to an older adult cohort, to investigate whether this
improvement when dual-tasking is observed in healthy older adults. Mobile
Brain/Body Imaging (MoBI) was used to record electroencephalographic (EEG)
activity, three-dimensional (3D) gait kinematics and behavioral responses
in the Go/NoGo task, during sitting or walking on a treadmill, in 34 young
adults and 37 older adults. Increased response accuracy during walking,
independent of age, was found to correlate with slower responses to
stimuli (r = 0.44) and with walking-related EEG amplitude modulations over
frontocentral regions (r = 0.47) during the sensory gating (N1) and
conflict monitoring (N2) stages of inhibition, and over left-lateralized
prefrontal regions (r = 0.47) during the stage of inhibitory control
implementation (P3). These neural activity changes are related to the
cognitive component of inhibition, and they were interpreted as signatures
of behavioral improvement during walking. On the other hand, aging,
independent of response accuracy during walking, was found to correlate
with slower treadmill walking speeds (r = -0.68) and attenuation in
walking-related EEG amplitude modulations over left-dominant frontal
(r = -0.44) and parietooccipital regions (r = 0.48) during the N2 stage,
and over centroparietal regions (r = 0.48) during the P3 stage. These
neural activity changes are related to the motor component of inhibition,
and they were interpreted as signatures of aging. Older adults whose
response accuracy ‘paradoxically’ improved during walking manifested
neural signatures of both behavioral improvement and aging, suggesting
that their flexibility in reallocating neural resources while walking
might be maintained for the cognitive but not for the motor inhibitory
component. These distinct neural signatures of aging and behavior can
potentially be used to identify ‘super-agers’, or individuals at risk for
cognitive decline due to aging or neurodegenerative disease.