Essay --

Experimental findings suggest by performance on a variety of different tasks, episodic memory (EM) for specific events declines as a function of advancing age, even in healthy individuals (episodic memory; Tulving., 1983; Light., 1991; Craik & Jennings., 1992). The question of how best to account for this decline in functional terms is a long-standing one (Light., 1991). This paper will focus on the use of functional neuroimaging to investigate the neural correlates of age-related changes in episodic memory encoding between older and younger adults. With specific focus on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus regions. With the emergence of functional neuroimaging technology, significant advancements in current knowledge of the human memory have evolved. Through such technology, the measurement of cerebral metabolic activity can be measured during cognitive tasks (Langley & Madden., 2000). This enables the identification of specific brain regions involved in recruiting specific memory processes activated during cognitive tasks (Langley & Madden., 2000). Recent availability of these neuroimaging techniques has provided informative insight for theories of memory, opening an avenue for further research into cognitive age-related neuroscience. Until recently much age-related memory decline has been documented through behavioural studies, suggest that some aspects of memory functioning during aging have age-associated structural brain changes (Langley & Madden., 2000). Increasing numbers of studies have explored the associations between these memory deficits and structural changes, (eg., Golomb et al., 1994; Raz et al., 1998, 1999; as cited in Langley & Madden., 2000). As humans age, many impairments occur in the cognitive syst... ...g of similar (not dissimilar) objects compared to younger adults. Similarly this response predicted behavioural performance within both groups and evidently found to be related to structural changes within this region. This study provides valuable evidence for age-related differences within the hippocampal, these changes may impact older adults performance on a range of episodic memory tasks. Similarly Wilson et al’s. (2006) model that accounts for age-related susceptibility to interference, suggests that age-related changes in the DG may result in less efficient pattern separation due to an impaired ability to reduce similarity among new input pattern (Wilson et al., 2006). Therefore it may be suggested that age-related difference discussed in the evidence above can be associated with natural/general deterioration of healthy ageing individuals. In summary†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.