By 2050, the global population of people aged 65 years or older will triple. While this is accompanied with an increasing burden of age-associated diseases, it also emphasizes the need to understand the effects of healthy ageing on cognitive processes. One such effect is a general slowing of processing speed, which is well documented in many domains. The execution of anti-saccades depends on a well-established brain-wide network ranging from various cortical areas and basal ganglia through the superior colliculus down to the brainstem saccade generators. To clarify the consequences of healthy aging as well as gender on the execution of reflexive and voluntary saccades, we measured a large sample of healthy, non-demented individuals (n = 731, aged 51-84 years) in the anti-saccade task. Age affected various aspects of saccade performance: The number of valid trials decreased with age. Error rate, saccadic reaction times (SRTs) and variability in saccade accuracy increased with age whereas anti-saccade costs, accuracy and peak velocity of anti-saccades and direction errors was not affected by age. Gender affected SRTs independent of age and saccade type with male participants having overall shorter SRTs. Our rigid and solid statistical testing using linear mixed effect models provide evidence for a uniform slowing of processing speed independent of the actually performed eye movement. Our data do not support the assumption of a specific deterioration of frontal lobe functions with ageing.
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