Katja Glinka

• The present dissertation aimed to contribute to the attempt of decomposing interindividual aging trajectories and to provide empirical evidence about the potential role of brain aging in emotion processing by using different methodological approaches. Study 1 revealed attenuated arousal-modulated BOLD signals in older adults with low (vs. high) levels of executive functioning, for both negative and positive emotional stimuli in different brain areas, including bilateral premotor area (BA 6), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobule, and left putamen. Functional connectivity of amygdala and visual cortex with various other brain regions was as well found. Study 2 revealed that brain functioning related to executive functioning moderates the relation between subjective arousal and level of executive functioning. Moderation effects were found for brain activity in several brain regions including lateral and medial frontal cortex, medial temporal cortex, occipital cortex, insula, and cerebellum. Older adults with brain functioning associated with brain aging and low executive functioning showed high levels of positive as well as negative arousal. Study 3 investigated changes in subjective negative arousal after a 12-month aerobic intervention training. It revealed that, overall, older adults decreased in negative arousal, most likely due to improvements in emotion regulation. However, one subgroup increased in negative arousal. This subgroup showed high levels of executive functioning and compensatory brain activity at T0. The preliminary results of study 4 revealed that lower white matter in the frontal cortex went along with higher negative arousal.