Abstract

A recent review of the evidence for the frontal lobe aging hypothesis concluded that too little attention has been paid to evidence for changes seen elsewhere in the brain and advocates a network approach to this issue, rather than a localization one. This chapter shows that the neuroimaging evidence indicates a critical role not only for the frontal lobes in cognitive aging but also for other areas as well. Age-related declines in memory do occur, but declines are much greater in the performance of some tasks than that of others. Age-related declines in brain volume are also differential, with the greatest amounts of atrophy being seen in the prefrontal cortex and neostriatum. It is now clear that age-related changes in prefrontal cortical structure and function are related to the changes observed in memory performance, although the research is still in its early days.