**6. Conclusion**

In this review, we have covered imaging findings related to neurocognitive changes associated with aging and culture, and some findings pertaining to their interaction. Studies on neurocognitive aging show a general reduction in the distinctiveness of neural responses to different stimuli in the posterior brain regions that may be related to neurobiological declines. In the midst of such neurobiological declines, there is also consistent evidence showing increases in frontal responses that may be part of a compensatory response, in particular for the declines associated with posterior brain regions. In contrast to the more global effect of aging, studies on cultural differences in values, perception and attention have also shown specific and more localized differences in neural function that are consistently associated with the analytic-holistic dichotomy in Westerners and East Asians respectively. Specifically, Westerners show functional brain responses that reflect their bias for analytic processing styles that is associated with increased responses in object-processing regions probably related to greater attention to object features. In contrast, East Asians show brain responses that reflect a more holistic processing style associated with attention to contextual information in regions like the lingual landmark area. Some differences in brain structure have also been observed in these cultural groups, although a clear mechanism between cultural experience and brain structure has yet to be established. A few studies have shown that the impact of culture-related experiences on neural structure and function may be acquired at a very young age, and importantly, endures through to advanced aging with even some cases of accentuation.

In sum, the findings covered in this review suggest that there is a reliable and consistent effect of cultural experiences on neural structure and function. While more studies are required to strengthen the findings, initial studies have shown also that at least some of these culture-related effects present in young adults are maintained even in the face of neurobiological changes associated with aging. Importantly, these findings also suggest that neurobiological aging does not always lead to neurocognitive decline in a uniform manner, and that external experiences can modulate and perhaps alleviate some of the neural effects of aging in the brain.
