Moderating Effects of Cortical Thickness, Volume, and Memory Performance on Age Differences in Neural Reinstatement of Scene Information

The strength of neural reinstatement, a correlate of episodic memory retrieval, reportedly reflects the amount and fidelity of mnemonic content and is weaker in older than younger adults, especially for scene memoranda. Given evidence that age-related declines in cortical thickness and volume contribute to age-related cognitive decline, we analyzed fMRI data acquired from healthy young and older adults to examine relationships between cortical thickness, cortical volume, age, and scene- related reinstatement in the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and medial place area (MPA), two cortical regions implicated in scene processing. A 'reinstatement index' was estimated from fMRI data collected during tests of source memory for scene images, and multiple regression analyses were employed to examine the effects of the variables of interest on scene reinstatement. There were robust age differences in reinstatement, cortical thickness, and cortical volume. In both regions of interest, cortical volume fully mediated the effects of age on reinstatement. Additionally, PPA reinstatement strength predicted source memory performance independently of cortical volume or age. These findings suggest that age differences in scene reinstatement are mediated by cortical volume and that memory performance and cortical volume are associated with unique components of variance in reinstatement strength.