Work

Aging alters neural activity at event boundaries in the hippocampus and Posterior Medial network

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: Recent research has highlighted a role for the hippocampus and a Posterior Medial cortical network in signaling event boundaries. However, little is known about whether or how these neural processes change over the course of healthy aging. Here, 546 cognitively normal participants 18-88 years old viewed a short movie while brain activity was measured using fMRI. The hippocampus and regions of the Posterior Medial network show increased activity at event boundaries, but these boundary-evoked responses decrease with age. Boundary-evoked activity in the posterior hippocampus predicts performance on a separate test of memory for stories, suggesting that hippocampal activity during event segmentation may be a broad indicator of individual differences in episodic memory ability. In contrast, boundary-evoked responses in the medial prefrontal cortex and middle temporal gyrus increase across the age range. These findings suggest that aging may alter neural processes for segmenting and remembering continuous real-world experiences.

Source: Nature Communications

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17713-4

Authors: Zachariah M. Reagh, Angelique I. Delarazan, Alexander Garber, Charan Ranganath

Institutions: Washington University in St. Louis, University of California, Davis

Language: English

Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $5,380