Neural signatures of semantic and phonemic fluency in young and old adults

Abstract

As we age, our ability to select and produce words changes, yet we know little about the underlying neural substrate of word-finding difficulties in old adults. The present study was designed to elucidate changes in specific frontally mediated retrieval processes involved in word-finding difficulties associated with advanced age. We implemented two overt verbal (semantic and phonemic) fluency tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging and compared brain activity patterns of old and young adults. Performance during the phonemic task was comparable for both age-groups and mirrored by strongly left lateralized (frontal) activity patterns. On the other hand, a significant drop of performance during the semantic task in the older goup was accompanied by additional right (inferior and middle) frontal activity, which was negatively correlated with performance. Moreover, the younger group recruited different subportions of the left inferior frontal gyrus for both fluency tasks, while the older participants failed to show this distinction. Thus, functional integrity and efficient recruitment of left frontal language areas seems to be critical for successful word-retrieval in old age.