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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 3, 2026

A Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate Interference in Working Memory by Distractions and Interruptions
10:38

A Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate Interference in Working Memory by Distractions and Interruptions

Published on: July 16, 2015

Aging, self-referencing, and medial prefrontal cortex.

Angela H Gutchess1, Elizabeth A Kensinger, Daniel L Schacter

  • 1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. gutchess@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu

Social Neuroscience
|July 18, 2008
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Healthy aging affects brain function, particularly in the medial prefrontal cortex during self-referencing tasks. Elderly adults show distinct emotional processing patterns compared to younger adults.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Aging
  • Neuroimaging

Background:

  • The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) shows minimal structural aging changes, but its functional alterations with age are less understood.
  • Self-referencing tasks are known to engage the mPFC in young adults.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate age-related functional changes in the medial prefrontal cortex during self-referencing.
  • To compare brain activation patterns between young and elderly adults on a self-referencing task.

Main Methods:

  • Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed.
  • Nineteen young (mean age 23) and seventeen elderly (mean age 72) adults performed a task involving judging adjectives related to self, another person, or in uppercase.
  • Overlap in medial prefrontal cortex and mid-cingulate activations between age groups was assessed for the self-reference effect.

Main Results:

  • Both young and elderly adults engaged the medial prefrontal cortex and mid-cingulate during self-referencing.
  • Cerebral differences between groups in self-vs-other judgments were observed in somatosensory and motor areas.
  • Age-related modulations were found in the network for emotional valence processing, with elderly adults showing increased dorsal prefrontal cortex activity for positive relative to negative items.

Conclusions:

  • The medial prefrontal cortex and mid-cingulate are commonly engaged in self-referencing across the adult lifespan.
  • Aging appears to modulate emotional processing networks, potentially indicating enhanced controlled processing of positive information in older adults.