Researchers from New Jersey Medical School, collaborating with colleagues at the Rocco Ortenzio Center for Neuroimaging, conducted brain scans on adults across a wide age range to explore how fatigue interacts with brain activity. The study examined responses to temporary fatigue and found no age- or gender-related differences in chronic fatigue status. The findings were shared in a peer-reviewed article published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, contributing an important piece to the broader conversation about how the brain handles tiredness over time.
In this investigation, fatigue data were gathered from 43 healthy participants aged 20 to 63. A questionnaire captured chronic fatigue by assessing fatigue levels over the preceding four weeks, while another measure evaluated fatigue following a cognitively demanding task. While the participants completed the task, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tracked brain activity, enabling researchers to examine whether the intensity of activation in different brain regions correlated with the fatigue reported by each person. This approach provides a window into how neural circuits supporting attention, working memory, and executive control may relate to fatigue states during cognitive effort.
The results showed no association between chronic fatigue and either gender or age. Yet age did appear to influence how people experience temporary fatigue after task completion. Older participants tended to report less temporary fatigue post-task compared with younger counterparts. At a neural level, the mid-frontal areas of the brain demonstrated age-related shifts in their role: younger individuals showed a capacity to recruit these regions to counteract fatigue during task performance, whereas older individuals did not rely on these same mid-frontal mechanisms as strongly. Paradoxically, despite greater brain activation in some cases, older participants reported reduced fatigue levels after engaging in the cognitively demanding task. Conversely, the data suggested that higher brain activation during problem solving was linked to greater fatigue among younger participants, with this relationship intensifying as age decreased. Overall, these patterns hint at developmental changes in how the brain mobilizes cognitive resources to manage fatigue across the lifespan.
Though preliminary, the study marks a meaningful first step toward clarifying how fatigue relates to activity across different brain lobes, and how factors such as gender and age may shape these dynamics. By combining self-report fatigue measures with real-time neural activity data, the research lays groundwork for broader inquiries into fatigue management, cognitive workload, and aging. Future work will aim to expand sample diversity, extend age ranges, and examine longitudinal changes to build a more complete picture of fatigue and brain function. (Source: Frontiers in Neuroscience)”