Digital Commons Network^™

Age-Related Functional Recruitment For Famous Name Recognition: An Event-Related Fmri Study, Kristy A. Nielson, Kelli Douville, Michael Seidenberg, John L. Woodard, Sarah K. Miller, Malgorzata Franczak, Piero Antuono, Stephen M. Rao

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Recent neuroimaging research shows that older adults exhibit recruitment, or increased activation on various cognitive tasks. The current study evaluated whether a similar pattern also occurs in semantic memory by evaluating age-related differences during recognition of Recent (since the 1990s) and Enduring (1950s to present) famous names. Fifteen healthy older and 15 healthy younger adults performed the name recognition task with a high and comparable degree of accuracy, although older adults had slower reaction time in response to Recent famous names. Event-related functional MRI showed extensive networks of activation in the two groups including posterior cingulate, right hippocampus, temporal lobe …