An fMRI Study of Neural Activations in the Aged and Illiterates

Abstract

This study used fMRI to examine the effects of aging and education on neural activations associated with verbal and nonverbal working memory tasks in healthy right-handed 36 subjects. In aged literates, verbal and nonverbal tasks produced left hemispheric and bihemispheric activations, respectively. Similar patterns of brain activations were obtained in young literates during verbal and nonverbal tasks. In aged illiterates, however, both verbal and nonverbal tasks mainly engaged left hemispheric regions at locations different from those of aged literates. Our results indicate that education but not healthy aging determines the pattern of neural activations associated with the memory tasks.