1.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
; 101(35): 13091-5, 2004 Aug 31.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-15322270
ABSTRACT
The present study investigated whether neural structures become less functionally differentiated and specialized with age. We studied ventral visual cortex, an area of the brain that responds selectively to visual categories (faces, places, and words) in young adults, and that shows little atrophy with age. Functional MRI was used to estimate neural activity in this cortical area, while young and old adults viewed faces, houses, pseudowords, and chairs. The results demonstrated significantly less neural specialization for these stimulus categories in older adults across a range of analyses.