BOSTON (Reuters Health) - Many older people have memory-related brainpower that is nearly as good as a younger person's, but they appear to lose the ability to bring it "on-line" as they age, a new study shows.

The findings, senior author Dr. Randy Buckner of Washington University in St. Louis said, suggest that older people could strengthen their memory skills with certain types of rehabilitation and training exercises. They also provide the first evidence that memory loss is not due to destruction of the parts of the brain responsible for storing memories, he added.

Buckner presented his findings here Saturday at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. The study will be published in the February 28 issue of the journal Neuron.

Buckner and colleagues used a technique called BOLD-contrast fMRI to view the brains of a group of adults as they tried to memorize words. None of them had Alzheimer's or any other type of dementia. Adults in their mid-70s and older, they found, showed a different pattern of brain activation than younger people.

Past research by Buckner's team has shown that when younger people try to memorize a word, they show very strong, focused activity in a section of their left prefrontal cortex. And the stronger this activity, the more likely they are to memorize the word successfully.

A corresponding section of the right side of the brain is also activated in young people during memorization, but only very briefly.

But in older people, the researchers found, this left prefrontal cortex memory center was much less active during memorization. Instead, the older individuals showed activation in several different parts of the brain, including the right prefrontal cortex sector that is only briefly activated in the younger people.

What may be happening, Buckner suggests, is that the older person's brain loses the ability to call on and control the parts of the left cortex that are most useful for memory storage.

When the older adults were given a strategy for remembering the words that required them to think more deeply about their meaning, they were able to bring the left frontal cortex region "on-line" nearly as efficiently as the younger adults, Buckner reported. But the activity in the other parts of their brain continued, and was actually more pronounced after the older adults were given the "support strategy."

Older people, Buckner said, may have a more difficult time coming up with such "support strategies" on their own.

What's encouraging about the findings, Buckner said, is that they suggest some age-related loss of memory function can be reversed with coaching and support.

"Our work probably only suggests the potential," Buckner told Reuters Health. "This sets the stage for cognitive rehabilitation and training strategies."

Cardiovascular fitness appears to be associated with better memory in older adults, he added, so he and his colleagues plan to investigate whether older people with healthy hearts show any differences in brain activity during memorization compared to their peers who aren't in such good shape. Also, he added, his team wants to see if Alzheimer's patients have an exaggerated version of the less-focused brain activation he and his colleagues saw in healthy older individuals.

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