Intrinsic Brain Connectivity Related to Age in Young and Middle Aged Adults

Age-related variations in resting state connectivity of the human brain were examined from young adulthood through middle age. A voxel-based network measure, degree, was used to assess age-related differences in tissue connectivity throughout the brain. Increases in connectivity with age were found in paralimbic cortical and subcortical regions. Decreases in connectivity were found in cortical regions, including visual areas and the default mode network. These findings differ from those of recent developmental studies examining earlier growth trajectories, and are consistent with known changes in cognitive function and emotional processing during mature aging. The results support and extend previous findings that relied on a priori definitions of regions of interest for their analyses. This approach of applying a voxel-based measure to examine the functional connectivity of individual tissue elements over time, without the need for a priori region of interest definitions, provides an important new tool in brain science.

[1]  Cornelis J. Stam,et al.  Small-world and scale-free organization of voxel-based resting-state functional connectivity in the human brain , 2008, NeuroImage.

[2]  M. Mather,et al.  Aging and emotional memory: the forgettable nature of negative images for older adults. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[3]  Paul J. Laurienti,et al.  Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience Aging Neuroscience , 2022 .

[4]  T. Salthouse,et al.  What needs to be explained to account for age-related effects on multiple cognitive variables? , 2003, Psychology and aging.

[5]  Jacob Jelsing,et al.  The prefrontal cortex in the Göttingen minipig brain defined by neural projection criteria and cytoarchitecture , 2006, Brain Research Bulletin.

[6]  S. Petersen,et al.  The maturing architecture of the brain's default network , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[7]  Jonathan D. Power,et al.  Functional Brain Networks Develop from a “Local to Distributed” Organization , 2009, PLoS Comput. Biol..

[8]  Kaustubh Supekar,et al.  Development of Large-Scale Functional Brain Networks in Children , 2009, NeuroImage.

[9]  G. Cosnard,et al.  Comparison of regional cerebral blood flow and glucose metabolism in the normal brain: effect of aging , 2000, Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

[10]  Faith M. Gunning-Dixon,et al.  Aging, sexual dimorphism, and hemispheric asymmetry of the cerebral cortex: replicability of regional differences in volume , 2004, Neurobiology of Aging.

[11]  P. Baltes,et al.  Emergence of a powerful connection between sensory and cognitive functions across the adult life span: a new window to the study of cognitive aging? , 1997, Psychology and aging.

[12]  S. Rombouts,et al.  Reduced resting-state brain activity in the "default network" in normal aging. , 2008, Cerebral cortex.

[13]  G. Labouvie-vief,et al.  Emotions and Self-Regulation: A Life Span View , 1989 .

[14]  R. Todd Constable,et al.  Functional connectivity and alterations in baseline brain state in humans , 2010, NeuroImage.

[15]  L. Carstensen,et al.  Emotional experience in everyday life across the adult life span. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  Lynn Hasher,et al.  The influence of emotional valence on age differences in early processing and memory. , 2006, Psychology and aging.

[17]  Robert T. Schultz,et al.  Integrated Intensity and Point-Feature Nonrigid Registration , 2004, MICCAI.

[18]  Mara Mather,et al.  Aging and Attentional Biases for Emotional Faces , 2003, Psychological science.

[19]  Pamela K. Smith,et al.  Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span. , 2002, Psychology and aging.

[20]  L. Levine,et al.  Experienced and remembered emotional intensity in older adults. , 1997, Psychology and aging.

[21]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Enhancement of MR Images Using Registration for Signal Averaging , 1998, Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography.

[22]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Age- and Gender-Related Differences in the Cortical Anatomical Network , 2009, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[23]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Identifying the brain's most globally connected regions , 2010, NeuroImage.

[24]  J. Gabrieli,et al.  Insights into the ageing mind: a view from cognitive neuroscience , 2004, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[25]  Abraham Z. Snyder,et al.  Spurious but systematic correlations in functional connectivity MRI networks arise from subject motion , 2012, NeuroImage.

[26]  Robert T. Schultz,et al.  Integrated Intensity and Point-Feature Nonrigid Registration. , 2001 .

[27]  G. Lautenschlager,et al.  Mediators of long-term memory performance across the life span. , 1996, Psychology and aging.

[28]  Edward T. Bullmore,et al.  Efficiency and Cost of Economical Brain Functional Networks , 2007, PLoS Comput. Biol..

[29]  Yong He,et al.  Discrete Neuroanatomical Networks Are Associated with Specific Cognitive Abilities in Old Age , 2011, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[30]  R. Cabeza,et al.  Task-independent and task-specific age effects on brain activity during working memory, visual attention and episodic retrieval. , 2004, Cerebral cortex.

[31]  Edward T. Bullmore,et al.  Age-related changes in modular organization of human brain functional networks , 2009, NeuroImage.

[32]  S. Petersen,et al.  Development of distinct control networks through segregation and integration , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[33]  Mert R. Sabuncu,et al.  The influence of head motion on intrinsic functional connectivity MRI , 2012, NeuroImage.

[34]  A. Vespignani,et al.  The architecture of complex weighted networks. , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[35]  E. Bullmore,et al.  A Resilient, Low-Frequency, Small-World Human Brain Functional Network with Highly Connected Association Cortical Hubs , 2006, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[36]  P. Skudlarski,et al.  Brain Connectivity Related to Working Memory Performance , 2006, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[37]  N. Tzourio-Mazoyer,et al.  Automated Anatomical Labeling of Activations in SPM Using a Macroscopic Anatomical Parcellation of the MNI MRI Single-Subject Brain , 2002, NeuroImage.

[38]  Keith A. Johnson,et al.  Cortical Hubs Revealed by Intrinsic Functional Connectivity: Mapping, Assessment of Stability, and Relation to Alzheimer's Disease , 2009, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[39]  R. Kahn,et al.  Efficiency of Functional Brain Networks and Intellectual Performance , 2009, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[40]  J. Callicott,et al.  Age-related alterations in default mode network: Impact on working memory performance , 2010, Neurobiology of Aging.

[41]  Xenophon Papademetris,et al.  Graph-theory based parcellation of functional subunits in the brain from resting-state fMRI data , 2010, NeuroImage.

[42]  Justin L. Vincent,et al.  Disruption of Large-Scale Brain Systems in Advanced Aging , 2007, Neuron.

[43]  Nora D. Volkow,et al.  Functional connectivity hubs in the human brain , 2011, NeuroImage.

[44]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Age-related changes in cortical blood flow activation during visual processing of faces and location , 1994, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[45]  M. Lawton,et al.  Dimensions of affective experience in three age groups. , 1992, Psychology and aging.

[46]  Dustin Scheinost,et al.  The intrinsic connectivity distribution: A novel contrast measure reflecting voxel level functional connectivity , 2012, NeuroImage.

[47]  V. Orgeta.  Specificity of age differences in emotion regulation , 2009, Aging & mental health.

[48]  Daniel Rueckert,et al.  Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention − MICCAI 2017: 20th International Conference, Quebec City, QC, Canada, September 11-13, 2017, Proceedings, Part II , 2017, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[49]  Edward T. Bullmore,et al.  Conditional Mutual Information Maps as Descriptors of Net Connectivity Levels in the Brain , 2010, Front. Neuroinform..

[50]  Maolin Qiu,et al.  A whole-brain voxel based measure of intrinsic connectivity contrast reveals local changes in tissue connectivity with anesthetic without a priori assumptions on thresholds or regions of interest , 2011, NeuroImage.

[51]  L. Carstensen,et al.  Emotion and aging: experience, expression, and control. , 1997, Psychology and aging.

[52]  Anthony Randal McIntosh,et al.  Age-related Changes in Brain Activity across the Adult Lifespan , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[53]  Xenophon Papademetris,et al.  More accurate Talairach coordinates for neuroimaging using non-linear registration , 2008, NeuroImage.

[54]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study of Ageing in 465 Normal Adult Human Brains , 2001, NeuroImage.

[55]  Tianzi Jiang,et al.  Default network and intelligence difference , 2009, 2009 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[56]  C. Grady,et al.  The effect of age on memory for emotional faces. , 2007, Neuropsychology.

[57]  O. Sporns,et al.  Complex brain networks: graph theoretical analysis of structural and functional systems , 2009, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.