Neural networks involved in self-judgement in young and elderly adults

Recent studies have shown that both young and elderly subjects activate the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) when they make self-referential judgements. However, the VMPFC might interact with different brain regions during self-referencing in the two groups. In this study, based on data from Ruby et al. (2009), we have explored this issue using psychophysiological interaction analyses. Young and elderly participants had to judge adjectives describing personality traits in reference to the self versus a close friend or relative (the other), taking either a first-person or a third-person perspective. The physiological factor was the VMPFC activity observed in all participants during self-judgement, and the psychological factor was the self versus other referential process. The main effect of first-person perspective in both groups revealed that the VMPFC was co-activated with the left parahippocampal gyrus and the precuneus for self versus other judgments. The main effect of age showed a stronger correlation between activity in the VMPFC and the lingual gyrus in young compared to elderly subjects. Finally, in the interaction, the VMPFC was specifically co-activated with the orbitofrontal gyrus and the precentral gyrus when elderly subjects took a first-person perspective for self-judgements. No significant result was observed for the interaction in young subjects. These findings show that, although the VMPFC is engaged by both young and older adults when making self-referential judgements, this brain structure interacts differently with other brain regions as a function of age and perspective. These differences might reflect a tendency by older people to engage in more emotional/social processing than younger adults when making self-referential judgements with a first-person perspective.