Reduced Hippocampal-Striatal Interactions during Formation of Durable Episodic Memories in Aging

Encoding of durable episodic memories requires cross-talk between the hippocampus and multiple brain regions. Changes in these hippocampal interactions could contribute to age-related declines in the ability to form memories that can be retrieved after extended time intervals. Here we tested whether hippocampal-neocortical- and subcortical functional connectivity (FC) observed during encoding of durable episodic memories differed between younger and older adults. About 48 younger (20-38 years; 25 females) and 43 older (60-80 years; 25 females) adults were scanned with fMRI while performing an associative memory encoding task. Source memory was tested similar to 20 min and similar to 6 days postencoding. Associations recalled after 20 min but later forgotten were classified as transient, whereas memories retained after long delays were classified as durable. Results demonstrated that older adults showed a reduced ability to form durable memories and reduced hippocampal-caudate FC during encoding of durable memories. There was also a positive relationship between hippocampal-caudate FC and higher memory performance among the older adults. No reliable age group differences in durable memory-encoding activity or hippocampal-neocortical connectivity were observed. These results support the classic theory of striatal alterations as one cause of cognitive decline in aging and highlight that age-related changes in episodic memory extend beyond hippocampal-neocortical connections.