Brief Abstract: Normal aging is typically associated with a pervasive decline in cognitive, motor and sensory function even in absence of pathology. Nevertheless, there are large individual differences in these declines: some older adults experience severe cognitive declines that impact their daily living and often are early markers of pathology, while others experience only mild impairments and lead a relatively healthy life. Understanding the neural bases of individual differences during aging is imperative in designing future interventions to slow, or even reverse some age-related cognitive impairments. My talk will focus on the cause and consequences of two such neural changes: age-related decline in neural distinctiveness and brain signal variability.