All this and much more in the full paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

A big thank you to all our amazing coauthors, and to @lipmpib.bsky.social and IMPRS COMP2PSYCH for supporting this work!

However, functionally neuroimaging behavior will only be useful if we work to better understand the nuances of that behavior. There must be increased specificity in the conceptualization, assessment and modelling of behavior to better understand how aging affects component processes of cognition.

Dynamic neurochemical systems (e.g., dopamine, noradrenaline, GABA, and glutamate) play an important role in aging. Excitingly, combining task-based techniques like fMRI, dynamic PET, functional MRS, and pharmacological manipulations can reveal how neurochemical changes affect behavior in real-time.

It is clear the future of the cog neuro of aging must be task-based. But we shouldn’t stop just at this.
We additionally advocate for integrative multimodal approaches combining fMRI with other methods (EEG, PET, fMRS) to study the effects of aging across spatial, temporal, & mechanistic scales.

A full understanding of how aging-related brain changes give rise to changing cognition can only come by observing dynamic brain activity during cognition. Indeed, evidence for many leading theories [e.g., compensatory activity, neural dedifferentiation] came from task-based investigations.

So, what can be done? While structure and resting-state are invaluable, we argue that they *must* share variance with task-elicited function to establish their behavioral relevance in cognitive aging. We chart out which conclusions can be drawn in the presence or absence of such convergence.

This logic is problematic as structural changes can only affect behavior through changes in the functioning of that region. Yet, the functional role of the region in relation to that behavior is inferred, not observed.

Inferences of behavioral relevance are often made based on a relation between brain structure(/resting-state) and behavior alone. E.g., if structural changes relate to memory, it is assumed that region must subserve memory and the structural changes affected the region’s memory-related function.

Most aging research to date has heavily relied on structural or resting-state investigations, neither of which image the brain as it performs experimentally-manipulated cognitive operations.
In 2023, these approaches comprised >90% of all (f/)MRI-based publications on the aging brain.

In collaboration with Alireza Salami, @karampbell.bsky.social, @mjdahl.bsky.social, @juliankosciessa.bsky.social, Matt Nassar, @markuswb.bsky.social, Fergus Craik, Ulman Lindenberger, Ulrich Mayr, @mnrajah.bsky.social, Naftali Raz, Lars Nyberg, and @garrettneuro.bsky.social