Neural compensation in older people with brain amyloid-β deposition

Recruitment of extra neural resources may allow people to maintain normal cognition despite amyloid-beta (A beta) plaques. Previous fMRI studies have reported such hyperactivation, but it is unclear whether increases represent compensation or aberrant overexcitation. We found that older adults with A beta deposition had reduced deactivations in task-negative regions, but increased activation in task-positive regions related to more detailed memory encoding. The association between higher activity and more detailed memories suggests that A beta-related hyperactivation is compensatory.