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Central to understanding human behavior is a comprehensive mapping of brain-behavior relations within the context of lifespan development. Reproducible discoveries depend upon well-powered samples of reliable data. We provide to the scientific community two, 10-minute, multi-echo functional MRI (ME-fMRI) runs, and structural MRI (T1-MPRAGE), from 181 healthy younger (ages 18–34 y) and 120 older adults (ages 60–89 y). T2-FLAIR MRIs and behavioral assessments are available in a majority subset of over 250 participants. Behavioral assessments include fluid and crystallized cognition, self-reported measures of personality, and socioemotional functioning. Initial quality control and validation of these data is provided. This dataset will be of value to scientists interested in BOLD signal specifically isolated from ME-fMRI, individual differences in brain-behavioral associations, and cross-sectional aging effects in healthy adults. Demographic and behavioral data are available within the Open Science Framework project “Goal-Directed Cognition in Older and Younger Adults” (http://osf.io/yhzxe/), which will be augmented over time; neuroimaging data are available on OpenNeuro (https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds003592).

BackgroundWhile older adults are able to attend to goal-relevant information, the capacity to ignore irrelevant or distracting information declines with advancing age. This decline in selective attention has been associated with poor modulation of brain activity in sensory cortices by anterior brain regions implicated in cognitive control.ObjectiveHere we investigated whether participation in an executive control training program would result in improved selective attention and associated functional brain changes in a sample of healthy older adults (N = 24, age 60-85 years).MethodsParticipants were enrolled in a goal-oriented attentional self-regulation (GOALS) program (n = 11) or a brain health education workshop as an active control condition (n = 13). All participants performed a working memory task requiring attention to or suppression of visual stimuli based on goal-relevance during functional magnetic resonance imaging.ResultsWe observed a pattern of enhanced activity in right frontal, parietal and temporal brain regions from pre- to posttraining in the GOALS intervention group, which predicted the selectivity of subsequent memory for goal-relevant stimuli.ConclusionsExecutive control training in older adults alters functional activity in brain regions associated with attentional control, and selectively predicts behavioral outcome.

Aging is accompanied by declines in executive control abilities and changes in underlying brain network architecture. Here, we examined brain networks in young and older adults during a task-free resting state and an N-back task and investigated age-related changes in the modular network organization of the brain. Compared with young adults, older adults showed larger changes in network organization between resting state and task. Although young adults exhibited increased connectivity between lateral frontal regions and other network modules during the most difficult task condition, older adults also exhibited this pattern of increased connectivity during less-demanding task conditions. Moreover, the increase in between-module connectivity in older adults was related to faster task performance and greater fractional anisotropy of the superior longitudinal fasciculus. These results demonstrate that older adults who exhibit more pronounced network changes between a resting state and task have better executive control performance and greater structural connectivity of a core frontal-posterior white matter pathway.