Social white matter tracts link aging to phishing vulnerability
In a study of 51 younger and 46 older adults, specific white matter tract changes partially mediated age-related vulnerability to email phishing.
In a study of 51 younger and 46 cognitively healthy older adults, researchers investigated how age-related differences in brain connectivity influence susceptibility to email fraud. Participants underwent diffusion-weighted imaging and completed the PHishing Internet Task, an ecologically valid measure of real-life email phishing susceptibility. The authors examined structural integrity metrics—fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity—in four social white matter tracts: the cingulum, uncinate fasciculus, anterior thalamic radiation, and superior longitudinal fasciculus.
Older adults had higher phishing susceptibility scores than younger participants. After adjusting for sex, education, general cognition, and global white matter integrity, increased mean diffusivity in the right anterior thalamic radiation and reduced fractional anisotropy in the left uncinate fasciculus partially mediated this age effect.
Why it matters
The findings provide a neurobiological explanation for how age-related structural decline in specific social cognition pathways can impair deception detection and decision-making.
Caveats
The investigation used a cross-sectional comparison across a modest sample of 97 participants, meaning it cannot track within-individual changes over time or confirm direct causation.
The paper
The role of social white matter tracts in susceptibility to phishing in aging
Hung CC, Lin T, Lung TC et al.
GeroScience · 3 Oct 2026
