TY  - JOUR
AU  - Stolp, Laura
AU  - Mandke, Kanad N
AU  - Mediano, Pedro Am
AU  - Gellersen, Helena M
AU  - Swartz, Alex
AU  - Rudzka, Katarzyna
AU  - Simons, Jon
AU  - Bekinschtein, Tristan A
AU  - Bor, Daniel
TI  - Informational complexity as a neural marker of cognitive reserve.
JO  - Brain and cognition
VL  - 193
SN  - 0278-2626
CY  - Amsterdam [u.a.]
PB  - Elsevier
M1  - DZNE-2026-00197
SP  - 106392
PY  - 2026
AB  - In Alzheimer's disease (AD), a mismatch between neurological damage and cognitive functioning often is attributed to individual differences in cognitive reserve. Understanding the neural mechanisms of cognitive reserve, which may differ across individuals, could help to assess the therapeutic effectiveness of interventions in AD. Here, 38 elderly participants performed a sustained attention task during high-density EEG while alert and drowsy. We defined cognitive reserve operationally as the ability to maintain task performance under drowsiness, with less impairment indicating higher reserve. Investigating performance variations during the active management of neural challenges offers a novel approach to studying cognitive reserve, capturing dynamics that mirror everyday cognitive demand. We relate performance under neural strain to various measures, including informational complexity using the Lempel-Ziv (LZsum) algorithm. We found a significant interaction between arousal and performance: LZsum values increased in high performers when drowsy but decreased in low performers. This effect was most pronounced in the frontal and central areas. These findings suggest LZsum reflects a compensatory mechanism and has potential as a neural marker of cognitive reserve. Additional structural MRI and network analyses revealed performance-related associations in entorhinal cortex, supramarginal gyrus, and frontoparietal networks, suggesting broader neural correlates of compensatory capacity.
KW  - Humans
KW  - Cognitive Reserve: physiology
KW  - Male
KW  - Female
KW  - Aged
KW  - Electroencephalography
KW  - Attention: physiology
KW  - Magnetic Resonance Imaging
KW  - Aged, 80 and over
KW  - Brain: physiology
KW  - Brain: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Alzheimer’s Disease (Other)
KW  - Cognitive reserve (Other)
KW  - EEG Experiment (Other)
KW  - Informational complexity (Other)
KW  - Neural Marker (Other)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:41494311
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106392
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/285255
ER  -