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Age‐related increases and decreases have been described in cortical dendritic neuropil. Here, we examine age‐related changes in the basilar dendrites of supragranular pyramidal cells in human superior temporal gyrus (i.e., Wernicke's area) of left and right hemispheres. Tissue was obtained from 20 neurologically normal right‐handers from 18–79 years: 10 males (M_age = 52.2 years; SD _age = 17.4) and 10 females (M_age = 47.8; SD_age = 20.5). In tissue prepared by a modified rapid Golgi technique, ten pyramidal cells were sampled from each hemisphere and evaluated according to the following parameters: total dendritic length, mean dendritic length, and dendritic segment count.

Despite considerable interindividual variation, the data exhibited significant dendritic degeneration with aging. There was an age‐related decrease in total dendritic length (r[20] = −0.44; P < 0.05) and especially in mean dendritic …