Task-based fMRI and intracranial EEG correlates of age-related hippocampal memory decline and compensation

COEX 

A decline in hippocampal function stands out as particularly important to the understanding of age-related cognitive impairment not only in pathological populations but also in healthy aging adults. In this talk, I will discuss the neural correlates of aging and age-related changes in hippocampal-dependent episodic memory which begin to surface in midlife and progress thereafter. I will demonstrate, using task-based fMRI, intracranial EEG, and scalp EEG data, that middle-aged adults begin to show significant variation in individual episodic memory and spatial navigation performance that can be explained with respect to age-related changes in cortico-hippocampal function. In particular, I will also provide evidence that individual cognitive performance in older but not younger participants can be explained by a combination of degeneration in the hippocampus and compensatory response in the prefrontal and parahippocampal cortex. By showing converging evidence from neuroimaging and electrophysiology, I hope to shed light on how the brain changes dynamically across aging, not only in its functional deterioration but also in its ability to adaptively adjust to maintain high cognitive performance.