Age-related differences in prefrontal-hippocampal connectivity are associated with reduced spatial context memory.

Aging is associated with episodic memory decline and alterations in memory-related brain function. However, it remains unclear if age-related memory decline is associated with similar patterns of brain aging in women and men. In the current task fMRI study, we tested the hypothesis that there are sex differences in the effect of age and memory performance on brain activity during episodic encoding and retrieval of face–location associations (spatial context memory). Forty-one women and 41 men between the ages of 21 and 76 years participated in this study. Between-group multivariate partial least squares analysis of the fMRI data was conducted to directly test for sex differences and similarities in age-related and performance-related patterns of brain activity. Our behavioral analysis indicated no significant sex differences in retrieval accuracy on the fMRI tasks. In relation to performance effects, we observed similarities and differences in how retrieval accuracy related to brain activity in women and men. Both sexes activated dorsal and lateral PFC, inferior parietal cortex, and left parahippocampal gyrus at encoding, and this supported subsequent memory performance. However, there were sex differences in retrieval activity in these same regions and in lateral occipital-temporal and ventrolateral PFC. In relation to age effects, we observed sex differences in the effect of age on memory-related activity within PFC, inferior parietal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, and lateral occipital-temporal cortices. Overall, our findings suggest that the neural correlates of age-related spatial context memory decline differ in women compared with men.

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Cortical thickness in right frontal and left lingual gyri differentially mediate episodic memory for spatial contextual details across the adult lifespan

10.1101/289447 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

A. Swierkot ◽

M. N. Rajah

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Episodic Memory ◽

Cortical Thickness ◽

Healthy Aging ◽

Memory Task ◽

Spatial Context ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Adult Lifespan ◽

Age Related ◽

Context Memory

AbstractHealthy aging is associated with declines in episodic memory and with widespread cortical thinning. These parallel declines suggest that age-related changes in cortical thickness may contribute to episodic memory decline with age. The current study uses a cross-sectional study design to examine whether regional cortical thickness mediates the relationship between age and episodic memory, as measured by a context memory task for faces. Mediation and conditional mediation models were tested using bootstrapping in order to determine how age-associated changes in regional cortical thickness mediated age-associated changes in performance on the context memory task. We observed that right superior frontal cortical thickness conditionally mediated spatial context memory only in middle-aged and older adults; and right caudal middle frontal cortical thickness conditionally mediated context memory only in older adults. Left lingual cortical thickness mediated spatial context memory across the adult lifespan, but this effect was most evident at midlife. Right parahippocampal cortical thickness mediated context memory, independent of age. We conclude that our cortical thickness results were generally consistent with the posterior-to-anterior shift in aging hypothesis (Davis et al., 2008) for episodic memory.

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Age-related changes in prefrontal cortex activity are associated with behavioural deficits in both temporal and spatial context memory retrieval in older adults

Cortex ◽

10.1016/j.cortex.2009.07.006 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 46 (4) ◽

pp. 535-549 ◽

Cited By ~ 64

Author(s):

M. Natasha Rajah ◽

Rafael Languay ◽

Luc Valiquette

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Memory Retrieval ◽

Spatial Context ◽

Age Related ◽

Temporal And Spatial ◽

Behavioural Deficits ◽

Age Related Changes ◽

Context Memory

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Intact context memory performance in adults with autism spectrum disorder

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-99898-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Sidni A. Justus ◽

Patrick S. Powell ◽

Audrey Duarte

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Episodic Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Memory Accuracy ◽

Age Related ◽

Adults With Asd ◽

Context Memory

AbstractResearch on memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) finds increased difficulty encoding contextual associations in episodic memory and suggests executive dysfunction (e.g., selective attention, cognitive flexibility) and deficient metacognitive monitoring as potential contributing factors. Findings from our lab suggest that age-related impairments in selective attention contribute to those in context memory accuracy and older adults tended to show dependence in context memory accuracy between relevant and irrelevant context details (i.e., hyper-binding). Using an aging framework, we tested the effects of selective attention on context memory in a sample of 23 adults with ASD and 23 typically developed adults. Participants studied grayscale objects flanked by two types of contexts (color, scene) on opposing sides and were told to attend to only one object-context relationship, ignoring the other context. At test, participants made object and context recognition decisions and judgment of confidence decisions allowing for an evaluation of context memory performance, hyper-binding, and metacognitive performance for context judgments in a single task. Results showed that adults with ASD performed similarly to typically developed adults on all measures. These findings suggest that context memory performance is not always disrupted in adults with ASD, even when demands on selective attention are high. We discuss the need for continued research to evaluate episodic memory in a wider variety of adults with ASD.

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Deficits in egocentric-updating and spatial context memory in a case of developmental amnesia

Neurocase ◽

10.1080/13554794.2014.890730 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 226-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

A. Gomez ◽

S. Rousset ◽

C. Bonniot ◽

A. Charnallet ◽

O. Moreaud

Keyword(s):

Spatial Context ◽

Developmental Amnesia ◽

Egocentric Updating ◽

Context Memory

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Orbito-frontal Cortex is Necessary for Temporal Context Memory

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2009.21316 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 22 (8) ◽

pp. 1819-1831 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Audrey Duarte ◽

Richard N. Henson ◽

Robert T. Knight ◽

Tina Emery ◽

Kim S. Graham

Keyword(s):

Frontal Cortex ◽

Critical Role ◽

Spatial Context ◽

Temporal Context ◽

Imaging Results ◽

Temporal Aspects ◽

Neuropsychological Investigation ◽

Temporal And Spatial ◽

Context Memory ◽

Encoding And Retrieval

Lesion and neuroimaging studies suggest that orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) supports temporal aspects of episodic memory. However, it is unclear whether OFC contributes to the encoding and/or retrieval of temporal context and whether it is selective for temporal relative to nontemporal (spatial) context memory. We addressed this issue with two complimentary studies: functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure OFC activity associated with successful temporal and spatial context memory during encoding and retrieval in healthy young participants, and a neuropsychological investigation to measure changes in spatial and temporal context memory in OFC lesion patients. Imaging results revealed that OFC contributed to encoding and retrieval of associations between objects and their temporal but not their spatial contexts. Consistent with this, OFC patients exhibited impairments in temporal but not spatial source memory accuracy. These results suggest that OFC plays a critical role in the formation and subsequent retrieval of temporal context.

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Age-related changes in neural oscillations supporting context memory retrieval

Cortex ◽

10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.020 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 91 ◽

pp. 40-55 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Jonathan Strunk ◽

Taylor James ◽

Jason Arndt ◽

Audrey Duarte

Keyword(s):

Memory Retrieval ◽

Neural Oscillations ◽

Age Related ◽

Age Related Changes ◽

Context Memory

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Aging, Culture, and Memory for Socially Meaningful Item-Context Associations: An East-West Cross-Cultural Comparison Study

10.32920/14638179 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lixia Yang ◽

Juan Li ◽

Julia Spaniol ◽

Lynn Hasher ◽

Andrea J. Wilkinson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Independent Living ◽

Daily Life ◽

Contextual Information ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Cultural Comparison ◽

Comparison Study ◽

Cross Cultural Comparison ◽

Age Related ◽

East West ◽

Context Memory

Research suggests that people in Eastern interdependent cultures process information more holistically and attend more to contextual information than do people in Western independent cultures. The current study examined the effects of culture and age on memory for socially meaningful item-context associations in 71 Canadians of Western European descent (35 young and 36 older) and 72 native Chinese citizens (36 young and 36 older). All participants completed two blocks of context memory tasks. During encoding, participants rated pictures of familiar objects. In one block, objects were rated either for their meaningfulness in the independent living context or their typicality in daily life. In the other block, objects were rated for their meaningfulness in the context of fostering relationships with others or for their typicality in daily life. The encoding in each block was followed by a recognition test in which participants identified pictures and their associated contexts. The results showed that Chinese outperformed Canadians in context memory, though both culture groups showed similar age-related deficits in item and context memory. The results suggest that Chinese are at an advantage in memory for socially meaningful item-context associations, an advantage that continues from young adulthood into old age.

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