Identifying age-related white matter change is vital to understanding neurodegeneration. With studies focusing mainly on memory, little is known of age-related change in language function. This current study bridges the gap by investigating the relationship between changes of WM integrity and task-based language performance. The behavioural evidence revealed significant different between young and healthy elderly people in phonemic as well as semantic retrieval. Also, TBSS analysis suggest significant difference in white matter volume between the two groups. However, correlation between white matter indices, FA and MD, was not found, indicating that degeneration of language function cannot be account for solely on white matter changes or particular task type.
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