Schedule of Events | Symposia

Salience Network Connectivity Changes Across the Lifespan Relate to Emotional Memory

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Michael DiCalogero¹ (mjd499@drexel.edu), Meghan D. Caulfield², Irene P. Kan³, Evangelia G. Chrysikou¹; ¹Drexel University, ²Seton Hall University, ³Villanova University

Cognitive decline in aging populations often corresponds with changes in the executive-control and default-mode networks, wherein older adults show changing connectivity patterns compared to younger adults. Less studied are the changes in neural connectivity within the salience network as a function of age. Prior research indicates that within-salience network connectivity decreases with age, which may be associated with changes in cognition. This study examined how individual differences in salience network connectivity may be linked to variability in memory performance in different age cohorts. We used existing data from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) dataset which included 294 participants (18- 87 years old), who completed an emotional memory task and underwent structural and functional MRI. Age cohorts were created for Younger Adults (18-39 years old, n = 78), Middle-Aged Adults (40-64 years old, n = 121), and Older Adults (65-88 years old, n = 95). In the emotional memory task, participants saw a neutral object superimposed on a positive, negative, or neutral background, and were later tested for object recognition and background valence. Functional MRI data were pre-processed using functional connectivity toolbox (CONN) pipelines. Statistical analyses revealed that changes in within-salience network connectivity in each age cohort were associated with emotional memory performance. For Younger Adults and Older Adults, increased connectivity inversely correlated with associative memory for positive valence trials. For Middle-Aged Adults, increased connectivity correlated with better object memory for negative valence trials. We discuss the importance of examining within-salience network connectivity for memory across the lifespan.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Development & aging