The hippocampus and underlying cortices are highly susceptible to pathologic change with increasing age. Using an associative face-scene (Face-Place) encoding task designed to target these regions, we investigated activation and connectivity patterns in cognitively normal older adults. Functional MRI scans were collected in 210 older participants (mean age = 76.4 yrs) in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA). Brain activation patterns were examined during encoding of novel Face-Place pairs. Functional connectivity of the hippocampus was also examined during encoding, with seed regions placed along the longitudinal axis in the head, body and tail of the structure. In the temporal lobe, task activation patterns included coverage of the hippocampus and underlying ventral temporal cortices. Extensive activation was also seen in frontal, parietal and occipital lobes of the brain. Functional connectivity analyses during overall encoding showed that the head of the hippocampus was connected to frontal and anterior/middle temporal regions, the body with frontal, widespread temporal and occipital regions, and the tail with posterior temporal and occipital cortical regions. Connectivity limited to encoding of subsequently remembered stimuli showed a similar pattern for the hippocampal body, but differing patterns for the head and tail regions. These results show that the Face-Place task produces activation along the occipitotemporal visual pathway including medial temporal areas. The connectivity results also show that patterns of functional connectivity vary throughout the anterior-posterior extent of the hippocampus during memory encoding. As these patterns include regions vulnerable to pathologic change in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, continued longitudinal assessment of these individuals can provide valuable information regarding changes in brain-behavior relationships that may occur with advancing age and the onset of cognitive decline.

随着年龄的增长，海马体和底层皮层对病理变化高度敏感。使用旨在针对这些区域的关联面部场景（Face-Place）编码任务，我们研究了认知正常老年人的激活和连接模式。在巴尔的摩老龄化纵向研究 (BLSA) 中收集了 210 名老年参与者（平均年龄 = 76.4 岁）的功能性 MRI 扫描。在编码新的 Face-Place 对的过程中检查了大脑激活模式。在编码过程中还检查了海马体的功能连接性，种子区域沿着结构的头部、身体和尾部的纵轴放置。在颞叶，任务激活模式包括对海马体和下方腹侧颞叶皮质的覆盖。在额叶也看到了广泛的激活，大脑的顶叶和枕叶。整体编码过程中的功能连接分析表明，海马头部与额叶和前/中颞区相连，身体与额叶、广泛的颞叶和枕叶区域相连，而尾部与后颞叶和枕叶皮质区域相连。仅限于编码随后记住的刺激的连接显示海马体的相似模式，但头部和尾部区域的模式不同。这些结果表明，Face-Place 任务沿着包括内侧颞区在内的枕颞视觉通路产生激活。连通性结果还表明，在记忆编码过程中，功能连通性的模式在整个海马体的前后范围内有所不同。