Memory and language in aging: How their shared cognitive processes, neural correlates, and supporting mechanisms change with age

This chapter summarizes cognitive aging findings focused on memory abilities, and addresses language abilities. It presents several relevant theories of cognitive aging that are applicable to the study of memory, language, or both. The chapter describes the taxonomy of memory to illustrate the organization of human memory systems. It also describes two distinct types of memory (declarative and non-declarative), the brain regions and networks that support these types of memory, and the way these brain systems change over the lifespan with a focus on age-related memory changes in older adults. The chapter explains how language processes and the brain regions that support them are affected by age. It concludes by discussing the promise of studies probing the intersections of memory and language through behavior, neuropsychology, and neuroimaging which point toward possible shared mechanisms.