Effects of Aging on Functional Connectivity of the Amygdala for Subsequent Memory of Negative Pictures

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02258.x
• Publication Date: 2008-12-16T19:53:49Z
• Authors: Peggy L. St. Jacques; Florin Dolcos; Roberto Cabeza
• Keywords: Adult; Male; Aging; Brain Mapping; Emotions; Prefrontal Cortex; Middle Aged; Amygdala; Hippocampus; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Mental Recall; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Humans; Attention; Female; Nerve Net; Arousal; Dominance, Cerebral; Aged

Aging is associated with preserved enhancement of emotional memory, as well age-related reductions in memory for negative stimuli, but the neural networks underlying such alterations are not clear. We used a subsequent-memory paradigm to identify brain activity predicting enhanced young and older adults. Activity amygdala predicted greater stimuli than neutral across age groups, finding consistent an overall memory. However, adults recruited anterior regions less posterior general that were subsequently remembered. Functional connectivity rest was stimuli: Older showed decreased functional between hippocampus, increased dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. These findings suggest differences might reflect typical regions, engagement regulatory processes inhibit responses.