The protective effects of cognitive reserve (CR) in aging have been well-documented, but CRs influence on the association between age-related changes in cognition and neural activation remains unclear. The present study employed a verbal working memory (VWM) paradigm to examine neural response (i.e., activations and deactivations) within the context of two prominent neurocognitive models of aging to determine if neurocompensatory processes support maintenance of cognitive function in 45 healthy older adults, and whether these processes are associated with CR. Results did not support the proposed posterior-anterior (PASA) shift in fMRI brain response, but did reveal reduced hemispheric asymmetry (i.e., HAROLD) of relative deactivations, and an unexpected increase in left-lateralized activations. While CR was not found to influence neurocompensatory processes, VWM performance did, such that only higher performing OAs demonstrated the HAROLD effect of relative deactivations. Findings suggest that deactivations may be particularly sensitive to age-related neurocompensation and warrant further investigation.
