A key feature of normal aging is that memory becomes less rich in perceptual and conceptual details. This property has been proposed to primarily reflect a tendency of elderly to retrieve events in a less specific and so more generic manner than young people and to a lesser extent encoding that is less perceptually and conceptually distinct. Proposed research investigates changes with age in neural systems supporting memory for perceptual details. To do so, the visual-specificity of brain areas supporting explicit and implicit memory for particular perceptual properties (view size) of objects and faces are assessed using 2 complementary techniques. 1. Neuropsychological studies use Parkinson's disease as a model for frontal-basal ganglionic dysfunction and mild Alzheimer's dementia as a model for MTL and posterior extrastriate dysfunction to assess the contributions of these brain systems to changes in normal aging age-related disorders. 2. Combined event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and simultaneous magnetoencephalogram (MEG) and event-related potential (ERP) recordings in the same young and old normal people define differences in the functional dynamics of young and aged brains that may impair perceptual memory. Experiments use implicit memory tests, and explicit memory is assessed using recognition (not recall) tests to reveal the extent to which implicit and explicit perceptual representations are encoded and potentially available for retrieval using frontal lobe strategic search processes that are impaired with age. Findings will also contribute to the functional characterization of these brain systems, and by defining brain areas underlying age-related memory disturbances, the work addresses a clinical goal of specifying which regions should be targeted by treatments.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F32)
Project #
5F32AG005914-02
Application #
6464018
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-IFCN-7 (01))
Program Officer
Wagster, Molly V
Project Start
2001-11-01
Project End
Budget Start
2001-12-01
Budget End
2002-10-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$46,192
Indirect Cost
Name
Boston University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
042250712
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02215
Schendan, Haline E; Amick, Melissa M; Cronin-Golomb, Alice (2009) Role of a lateralized parietal-basal ganglia circuit in hierarchical pattern perception: evidence from Parkinson's disease. Behav Neurosci 123:125-36
Tinaz, Sule; Schendan, Haline E; Stern, Chantal E (2008) Fronto-striatal deficit in Parkinson's disease during semantic event sequencing. Neurobiol Aging 29:397-407
Schendan, Haline E; Stern, Chantal E (2008) Where vision meets memory: prefrontal-posterior networks for visual object constancy during categorization and recognition. Cereb Cortex 18:1695-711
Schendan, Haune E; Kutas, Malra (2007) Neurophysiological evidence for transfer appropriate processing of memory: processing versus feature similarity. Psychon Bull Rev 14:612-9
Olesen, Pernille J; Schendan, Haline E; Amick, Melissa M et al. (2007) HIV infection affects parietal-dependent spatial cognition: evidence from mental rotation and hierarchical pattern perception. Behav Neurosci 121:1163-73
Schendan, Haline E; Stern, Chantal E (2007) Mental rotation and object categorization share a common network of prefrontal and dorsal and ventral regions of posterior cortex. Neuroimage 35:1264-77
Amick, Melissa M; Schendan, Haline E; Ganis, Giorgio et al. (2006) Frontostriatal circuits are necessary for visuomotor transformation: mental rotation in Parkinson's disease. Neuropsychologia 44:339-49
Schendan, Haline E; Searl, Meghan M; Melrose, Rebecca J et al. (2003) An FMRI study of the role of the medial temporal lobe in implicit and explicit sequence learning. Neuron 37:1013-25