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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Neurocognitive Aging and Behavior
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1470747
This article is part of the Research Topic Progress in the Assessment and Intervention of Neurocognitive Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases View all 10 articles

Brain compensatory activation during Stroop task in patients with mild cognitive impairment: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Provisionally accepted
Chenyu Fan Chenyu Fan 1Hanfei Li Hanfei Li 2,3Ke Chen Ke Chen 2,3Guohui Yang Guohui Yang 1Hongyu Xie Hongyu Xie 1Haozheng Li Haozheng Li 1Wu Yi Wu Yi 1Meng Li Meng Li 2,3,4*
  • 1 Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
  • 2 Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Changning, Shanghai Municipality, China
  • 3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Beijing, China
  • 4 INSIDE Institute for Biological and Artificial Intelligence, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Purpose: This study investigated the disparities in brain activation patterns during the Stroop task among individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and those without any cognitive impairments (healthy controls, HCs) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).We analyzed the cortical activation patterns of 73 patients with MCI and 63 HC individuals as they completed the Stroop task, employing fNIRS. The regions of interest (ROIs) included the dorsal prefrontal cortex (dPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), and parietal lobe (PL). The Stroop task is divided into early stage(0-15s) and late stage (15-30s). We also measured participants' behaviour during the Stroop task, analyzed variations in cortical activation intensity at different experiment stages, and performed correlation analysis between Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores, Stroop performance, and oxygenation levels.Results: Our analysis revealed that individuals with MCI and HC demonstrated elevated cortical activation in the dPFC, VLPFC, and PL areas while performing the Stroop task (q < 0.05, FDRcorrected). The MCI group displayed longer response latencies compared to the HC group while demonstrating comparable accuracy performance across both congruent and incongruent Stroop trials. The MCI group showed compensatory activation in the VLPFC, and PL regions compared to the HC group during the late stage of the Stroop task (q < 0.05, FDR-corrected). Correlational analysis revealed a negative association between MoCA scores and oxygenation levels in the dPFC, VLPFC, and PL regions during the late stage of the Stroop task (p < 0.05). However, no correlation was found with behavioural performance.MCI patients demonstrated effective compensation for their cognitive impairments at a partial behavioural level by engaging compensatory activation in the prefrontal, and parietal regions while performing the Stroop task.

    Keywords: Mild Cognitive Impairment 1, fNIRS 2, Executive Function 3, Stroop task 4, cortical compensatory activation 5

    Received: 26 Jul 2024; Accepted: 24 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Fan, Li, Chen, Yang, Xie, Li, Yi and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Meng Li, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Changning, 200050, Shanghai Municipality, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.