The relation between Scrabble expertise and brain aging as measured with EEG brain signal variability

Abstract Recent empirical work suggests that the dynamics of brain function, as measured by brain signal variability, differs between younger and older adults. We extended this work by examining how the relationship between brain signal variability and age is altered in the context of expertise. We recorded electroencephalography from Scrabble experts and controls during a visual word recognition task. To measure variability, we used multiscale entropy, which emphasizes the way brain signals behave over a range of timescales and can differentiate the variability of a complex system (the brain) from a purely random system. We replicated previously identified shifts from long-range interactions among neural populations to more local processing in late adulthood. In addition, we demonstrated an age-related increase in midrange neural interactions for experts, suggesting greater maintenance of network integration into late adulthood. Our results indicate that expertise-related differences in the context of age and brain dynamics occur across different timescales and that these differences are linked to task performance.