Differential Hemodynamic Response in Affective Circuitry with Aging: An fMRI Study of Novelty, Valence, and Arousal

■ Emerging evidence indicates that stimulus novelty is affectively potent and reliably engages the amygdala and other portions of the affective workspace in the brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined whether novel stimuli remain affectively salient across the lifespan, and therefore, whether novelty processing—a potentially survival-relevant function—is preserved with aging. Nineteen young and 22 older healthy adults were scanned during observing novel and familiar affective pictures while estimating their own subjectively experienced aroused levels. We investigatedage-relateddifferenceofmagnitudeofactivation,hemodynamictimecourse,andfunctionalconnectivity ofBOLDresponses in the amygdala. Although there were no age-related differences in the peak response of the amygdala to novelty, older individuals showed a narrower, sharper (i.e., “peakier”) hemodynamic time course in response to novel stimuli, as well as decreased connectivity between the left am...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: JOCN
• Authors: Yoshiya Moriguchi, Alyson Negreira, Mariann Weierich, Rebecca Dautoff, Bradford C. Dickerson, Christopher I. Wright, Lisa Feldman Barrett
• Keywords: Age-related Differences, Amygdala, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, JOCN 2011