Abstract
BackgroundAccessing information that defines personally familiar context in real-world situations is essential for the social interactions and the independent functioning of an individual. Personal familiarity is associated with the availability of semantic and episodic information as well as the emotional meaningfulness surrounding a stimulus. These features are known to be associated with neural activity in distinct brain regions across different stimulus conditions (e.g., when perceiving faces, voices, places, objects), which may reflect a shared neural basis. Although perceiving context-rich personal familiarity may appear unchanged in aging on the behavioral level, it has not yet been studied whether this can be supported by neuroimaging data.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural network associated with personal familiarity during the perception of personally familiar faces and places. Twelve young and twelve elderly cognitively healthy subjects participated in the study. Both age groups showed a similar activation pattern underlying personal familiarity, predominantly in anterior cingulate and posterior cingulate cortices, irrespective of the stimulus type. The young subjects, but not the elderly subjects demonstrated an additional anterior cingulate deactivation when perceiving unfamiliar stimuli.Conclusions/SignificanceAlthough we found evidence for an age-dependent reduction in frontal cortical deactivation, our data show that there is a stimulus-independent neural network associated with personal familiarity of faces and places, which is less susceptible to aging-related changes.
Highlights
When we perceive a personally familiar individual the identification process is modulated by person knowledge, emotion, social attachment, and only in part based on visual facial appearance [1]
Conclusions/Significance: we found evidence for an age-dependent reduction in frontal cortical deactivation, our data show that there is a stimulus-independent neural network associated with personal familiarity of faces and places, which is less susceptible to aging-related changes
FMRI Familiar compared to unfamiliar stimuli, irrespective of stimulus type (FF+FP.UF+UP), elicited substantially more brain activity, which was primarily located in anterior cingulate and posterior cingulate areas (Table 2, Figure 2)
Summary
When we perceive a personally familiar individual the identification process is modulated by person knowledge (e.g. personal traits, attitudes, and biographical facts), emotion, social attachment, and only in part based on visual facial appearance [1]. Perceiving personally familiar faces when contrasted with famous faces is associated with greater anterior and posterior cingulate activation as well as greater activation in other brain regions [4] This could be due to the richness of available episodic and semantic information associated with personal familiarity and might reflect social attachment and emotional response [4,8]. Personal familiarity is associated with the availability of semantic and episodic information as well as the emotional meaningfulness surrounding a stimulus These features are known to be associated with neural activity in distinct brain regions across different stimulus conditions (e.g., when perceiving faces, voices, places, objects), which may reflect a shared neural basis. Perceiving context-rich personal familiarity may appear unchanged in aging on the behavioral level, it has not yet been studied whether this can be supported by neuroimaging data
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