Cerebral aging: neuropsychological, neuroradiological, and neurometabolic correlates

The aging process is associated with a progressive cognitive decline, but both the extent of this decline and the profile of age-related cognitive changes remain to be clearly established. Currently, cognitive deficits associated with aging may be diagnosed under the categories of age-associated memory impairment, age-associated cognitive impairment, or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) category of age-related cognitive decline. Age-related decline has been reported for several cognitive domains, such as language (eg, verb naming, verbal fluency), visuospatial abilities (eg, facial discrimination), executive functions (eg, set shifting, problem solving), and memory functions (eg, declarative learning, source memory). There is an age-related decline in brain cortical volume, which primarily involves association cortices and limbic regions. Studies of brain metabolic activity demonstrate an age-related decline in neocortical areas. Activation studies using cognitive tasks demonstrate that older healthy individuals have a different pattern of activation from younger subjects, suggesting thai older subjects may recruit additional brain areas in order to maintain performance.