Individual differences in associative memory among older adults explained by hippocampal subfield structure and function

Older adults experience impairments in episodic memory, ranging from mild to clinically significant. Given the critical role of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) in episodic memory, age-related changes in MTL structure and function may partially account for individual differences in memory. Using ultra-high-field 7T structural MRI and high-resolution 3T functional MRI (hr-fMRI), we evaluated MTL subfield thickness and function in older adults representing a spectrum of cognitive health. Participants performed an associative memory task during hr-fMRI in which they encoded and later retrieved face-name pairs. Motivated by prior research, we hypothesized that differences in performance would be explained by the following: (i) entorhinal cortex (ERC) and CA1 apical neuropil layer [CA1-stratum radiatum lacunosum moleculare (SRLM)] thickness, and (ii) activity in ERC and the dentate gyrus (DG)/CA3 region. Regression analyses revealed that this combination of factors significantly accounted for variability in memory performance. Among these metrics, CA1-SRLM thickness was positively associated with memory, whereas DG/CA3 retrieval activity was negatively associated with memory. Furthermore, including structural and functional metrics in the same model better accounted for performance than did single-modality models. These results advance the understanding of how independent but converging influences of both MTL subfield structure and function contribute to age-related memory impairment, complementing findings in the rodent and human postmortem literatures.