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Intrinsic spontaneous brain activity predicts individual variability in associative memory in older adults
Author(s) -
Zheng Zhiwei,
Li Rui,
Xiao Fengqiu,
He Rongqiao,
Zhang Shouzi,
Li Juan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
psych journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 2046-0260
pISSN - 2046-0252
DOI - 10.1002/pchj.212
Subject(s) - functional magnetic resonance imaging , content addressable memory , psychology , resting state fmri , episodic memory , functional connectivity , associative property , brain activity and meditation , audiology , superior frontal gyrus , cognitive psychology , middle frontal gyrus , neuroscience , superior temporal gyrus , frontal lobe , lingual gyrus , cognition , electroencephalography , medicine , computer science , mathematics , artificial neural network , pure mathematics , machine learning
Older adults demonstrate notable individual differences in associative memory. Here, resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) was used to investigate whether intrinsic brain activity at rest could predict individual differences in associative memory among cognitively healthy older adults. Regional amplitude of low‐frequency fluctuations (ALFF) analysis and a correlation‐based resting‐state functional connectivity (RSFC) approach were used to analyze data acquired from 102 cognitively normal elderly who completed the paired‐associative learning test (PALT) and underwent fMRI scans. Participants were divided into two groups based on the retrospective self‐reports on whether or not they utilized encoding strategies during the PALT. The behavioral results revealed better associative memory performance in the participants who reported utilizing memory strategies compared with participants who reported not doing so. The fMRI results showed that higher associative memory performance was associated with greater functional connectivity between the right superior frontal gyrus and the right posterior cerebellum lobe in the strategy group. The regional ALFF values in the right superior frontal gyrus were linked to associative memory performance in the no‐strategy group. These findings suggest that the regional spontaneous fluctuations and functional connectivity during rest may subserve the individual differences in the associative memory in older adults, and that this is modulated by self‐initiated memory strategy use.