Functional brain imaging and age-related changes in cognition

There are a number of age-related structural and physiological changes in t he brain that could have implications for cognitive function in the elderly . The impact of these age-related changes in the brain on cognition has bee n studied using neuroimaging to examine brain activity during tasks of memo ry, perception and attention, and determine how this activity differs betwe en young and older individuals. It has often been found that older individu als utilize different areas of the brain than do young subjects when carryi ng out the same cognitive task. This has led some researchers to suggest th at older persons utilize different functional brain networks, perhaps to co mpensate for reductions of efficiency in task-related brain areas. However, data collected to date on this issue are still limited, so although the ev idence is intriguing, the definitive interpretation of these findings must await further experiments. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserv ed.