Top-down attention and Alzheimer's pathology affect cortical selectivity during learning, influencing episodic memory in older adults.

ABSTRACT: Effective memory formation declines in human aging. Diminished neural selectivity-reduced differential responses to preferred versus nonpreferred stimuli-may contribute to memory decline, but its drivers remain unclear. We investigated the effects of top-down attention and preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology on neural selectivity in 166 cognitively unimpaired older participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a word-face/word-place associative memory task. During learning, neural selectivity in place- and, to a lesser extent, face-selective regions was greater for subsequently remembered than forgotten events; positively scaled with variability in dorsal attention network activity, within and across individuals; and negatively related to AD pathology, evidence

SUBMITTER: Sheng J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12164959 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature