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Updated: Aug 6, 2026
Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Age-related variability in cortical activity during language processing
Julius Fridriksson1, K Leigh Morrow, Dana Moser
1Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA. jfridrik@sc.edu
Purpose:
The present study investigated the extent of cortical activity during overt picture naming using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Method:
Participants comprised 20 healthy, adult participants with ages ranging from 20 to 82 years. While undergoing fMRI, participants completed a picture-naming task consisting of 60 high-frequency nouns.
Results:
Linear regression analysis revealed a positive relationship between age and cortical activation intensity in Broca's and Wernicke's areas as well as the right-hemisphere homologue of Broca's area. In contrast, neural activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus, an area thought to be involved in attentional processing, did not increase as a function of age.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest age-related increases in cortical activation during simple language tasks, such as picture naming, in brain areas typically associated with language processing.
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