Healthy aging is accompanied by increased false remembering in addition to reduced successful remembering in older adults. Neuroimaging studies implicate age-related differences in the involvement of medial temporal lobe and fronto-parietal regions in mediating highly confident false recollection. However, no studies have directly examined the relationship between white matter microstructure and false recollection in younger and older adults. Using diffusion-weighted imaging and probabilistic tractography, we examined how white matter microstructure within tracts connecting the hippocampus and the fronto-parietal retrieval network contribute to false recollection rates in healthy younger and older adults. We found only white matter microstructure within the fornix contributed to false recollection rates, and this relationship was specific to older adults. Fornix white matter microstructure did not contribute to true recollection rate, nor did common white matter contribute to false recollection, suggesting fornix microstructure is explicitly associated with highly confident false memories in our sample of older adults. These findings underlie the importance of examining microstructural correlates associated with false recollection in younger and older adults.

健康老龄化伴随着增加的错误记忆以及老年人成功记忆的减少。神经影像学研究表明内侧颞叶和额顶叶区域在调节高度自信的错误回忆方面存在年龄相关差异。然而，没有研究直接检查年轻人和老年人的白质微结构与错误回忆之间的关系。使用弥散加权成像和概率纤维束成像，我们检查了连接海马和额顶叶检索网络的区域内的白质微结构如何影响健康年轻人和老年人的错误回忆率。我们发现只有穹窿内的白质微结构会导致错误的回忆率，这种关系是特定于老年人的。穹窿白质微结构对真实回忆率没有贡献，普通白质也不会导致错误回忆，这表明穹窿微结构与我们老年人样本中高度自信的错误记忆明显相关。这些发现强调了检查与年轻人和老年人错误回忆相关的微观结构相关性的重要性。