The Effect of Aging on Resting-State Brain Function: An fMRI Study
multi-method analysis of functional connectivity data may be critical to capture the full effect of aging on the health of brain networks
Recent studies have found a deleterious effect of age on a wide variety of measures of functional connectivity, and some hints at a relationship between connectivity rest and cognitive functioning. However, few studies have combined multiple functional connectivity methods, or examined them over a wide range of adult ages, to try to uncover which metrics and networks seem to be particularly sensitive to agerelated decline across the adult lifespan. The present study utilized multiple resting state functional connectivity methods in a sample of adults from 20–80 years old to gain a more complete understanding of the effect of aging on network function and integrity. Whole-brain results showed that aging results in weakening average within-network connectivity, lower system segregation and local efficiency, and higher participation coefficient. Network-level results suggested that nearly every primary sensory and cognitive network faces some degree of age-related decline, including reduced within-network connectivity, higher network-based participation coefficient, and reduced network-level local efficiency. Further, some of these connectivity metrics showed relationships with cognitive performance. Thus, these results suggest that a multi-method analysis of functional connectivity data may be critical to capture the full
effect of aging on the health of brain networks
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