In:
Journal of Neurophysiology, American Physiological Society, Vol. 96, No. 6 ( 2006-12), p. 2830-2839
Abstract:
Human aging brings with it declines in sensory function, both in vision and in hearing, as well as a general slowing in a variety of perceptual and cognitive operations. Yet in spite of these declines, language comprehension typically remains well preserved in normal aging. We review data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to describe a two-component model of sentence comprehension: a core sentence-processing area located in the perisylvian region of the left cerebral hemisphere and an associated network of brain regions that support the working memory and other resources needed for comprehension of long or syntactically complex sentences. We use this two-component model to describe the nature of compensatory recruitment of novel brain regions observed when healthy older adults show the same success at comprehending sentences as their younger adult counterparts. We suggest that this plasticity in neural recruitment contributes to the stability of language comprehension in the aging brain.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0022-3077
,
1522-1598
DOI:
10.1152/jn.00628.2006
RVK:
XA 10000 ; XA 552555
Language:
English
Publisher:
American Physiological Society
Publication Date:
2006
detail.hit.zdb_id:
80161-6
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1467889-5
