Functional connectivity density and the aging brain

Aging is associated with changes in the human brain anatomy and function and cognitive decline. However, the effect of aging on the brain functional connectivity is largely unknown. Resting-state functional connectivity datasets from 913 healthy subjects revealed that normal aging is associated with pronounced decreases (a top panel) in long-range functional connectivity density (FCD) that map into the default mode (DMN) and dorsal attention (DAN) networks (b, light blue pattern) and with increases (a bottom panel) that map into somatosensory (SSN) and cerebellar (CEN) networks (b, orange pattern). The same networks demonstrated pronounced gender effects on long-range FCD (c). For more information on this topic, please refer to the article by Tomasi and Volkow on pages 549–558. Molecular Psychiatry (2012) 17, 471 & 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved 1359-4184/12