McGill University.
Brain Imaging Centre, Douglas Institute Research Centre, Verdun, QC, Canada.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2019 Dec;31(12):1895-1916. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01455. Epub 2019 Aug 8.
Aging is associated with episodic memory decline and alterations in memory-related brain function. However, it remains unclear if age-related memory decline is associated with similar patterns of brain aging in women and men. In the current task fMRI study, we tested the hypothesis that there are sex differences in the effect of age and memory performance on brain activity during episodic encoding and retrieval of face-location associations (spatial context memory). Forty-one women and 41 men between the ages of 21 and 76 years participated in this study. Between-group multivariate partial least squares analysis of the fMRI data was conducted to directly test for sex differences and similarities in age-related and performance-related patterns of brain activity. Our behavioral analysis indicated no significant sex differences in retrieval accuracy on the fMRI tasks. In relation to performance effects, we observed similarities and differences in how retrieval accuracy related to brain activity in women and men. Both sexes activated dorsal and lateral PFC, inferior parietal cortex, and left parahippocampal gyrus at encoding, and this supported subsequent memory performance. However, there were sex differences in retrieval activity in these same regions and in lateral occipital-temporal and ventrolateral PFC. In relation to age effects, we observed sex differences in the effect of age on memory-related activity within PFC, inferior parietal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, and lateral occipital-temporal cortices. Overall, our findings suggest that the neural correlates of age-related spatial context memory decline differ in women compared with men.
衰老与情景记忆衰退和与记忆相关的大脑功能改变有关。然而，目前尚不清楚与年龄相关的记忆衰退是否与女性和男性的类似大脑衰老模式有关。在当前的任务 fMRI 研究中，我们检验了以下假设：即年龄和记忆表现对情景记忆编码和回忆期间的大脑活动的影响存在性别差异，这些差异与面孔-位置关联（空间情境记忆）有关。41 名年龄在 21 岁至 76 岁之间的女性和 41 名男性参与了这项研究。对 fMRI 数据进行了组间多元偏最小二乘法分析，以直接测试性别差异和相似性，以及与年龄相关和与表现相关的大脑活动模式。我们的行为分析表明，在 fMRI 任务中的回忆准确性方面，男女之间没有显著的性别差异。与表现效应有关，我们观察到女性和男性的回忆准确性与大脑活动之间的相似性和差异。两性在编码时都激活了背外侧和外侧前额叶皮层、下顶叶皮层和左侧海马旁回，这支持了随后的记忆表现。然而，在这些相同的区域以及外侧枕颞叶和腹外侧前额叶皮层中，存在性别差异的回忆活动。与年龄效应有关，我们观察到性别差异在与年龄相关的与记忆相关的大脑活动的影响上，这在 PFC、下顶叶皮层、海马旁回和外侧枕颞叶皮质中都有表现。总的来说，我们的发现表明，与年龄相关的空间情境记忆衰退的神经相关性在女性中与男性不同。
