Age-related changes in neural activity during source memory encoding in young, middle-aged and elderly adults

Source memory, the ability to remember contextual information present at the moment an event occurs, declines gradually during normal aging. The present study addressed whether source memory decline is related to changes in neural activity during encoding across age. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in three groups of 14 subjects each: young (21-26 years), middle-aged (50-55 years) and older adults (70-77 years). ERPs were recorded while the subjects performed a natural/artificial judgment on images of common objects that were presented randomly in one of the quadrants of the screen (encoding phase). At retrieval, old images mixed with new ones were presented at the center of the screen and the subjects judged whether each image was new or old and, if old, were asked to indicate at which position of the screen the image was presented in the encoding session. The neurophysiological activity recorded during encoding was segregated for the study items according to whether their context was correctly retrieved or not, so as to search for subsequent memory effects (SME). These effects, which consisted of larger amplitude for items subsequently attracting a correct source judgment than an incorrect one, were observed in the three groups, but their onset was delayed across the age groups. The amplitude of the SME was similar across age groups at the frontal and central electrode sites, but was manifested more at the posterior sites in middle-aged and older adults, suggesting that source memory decline may be related to less efficient encoding mechanisms.