Klaassens Bernadet L, van Gerven Joop M A, van der Grond Jeroen, de Vos Frank, Möller Christiane, Rombouts Serge A R B
Institute of Psychology, Leiden UniversityLeiden, Netherlands.
Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical CenterLeiden, Netherlands.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2017 Apr 19;9:97. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2017.00097. eCollection 2017.
Both normal aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been associated with a reduction in functional brain connectivity. It is unknown how connectivity patterns due to aging and AD compare. Here, we investigate functional brain connectivity in 12 young adults (mean age 22.8 ± 2.8), 12 older adults (mean age 73.1 ± 5.2) and 12 AD patients (mean age 74.0 ± 5.2; mean MMSE 22.3 ± 2.5). Participants were scanned during 6 different sessions with resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI), resulting in 72 scans per group. Voxelwise connectivity with 10 functional networks was compared between groups ( < 0.05, corrected). Normal aging was characterized by widespread decreases in connectivity with multiple brain networks, whereas AD only affected connectivity between the default mode network (DMN) and precuneus. The preponderance of effects was associated with regional gray matter volume. Our findings indicate that aging has a major effect on functional brain interactions throughout the entire brain, whereas AD is distinguished by additional diminished posterior DMN-precuneus coherence.
正常衰老和阿尔茨海默病（AD）均与大脑功能连接性降低有关。目前尚不清楚衰老和AD导致的连接模式有何异同。在此，我们对12名年轻成年人（平均年龄22.8±2.8岁）、12名老年人（平均年龄73.1±5.2岁）和12名AD患者（平均年龄74.0±5.2岁；简易精神状态检查表平均得分22.3±2.5）的大脑功能连接性进行了研究。采用静息态功能磁共振成像（RS-fMRI）对参与者在6个不同时段进行扫描，每组共获得72次扫描数据。比较了各组与10个功能网络的体素连接性（校正P<0.05）。正常衰老的特征是与多个脑网络的连接广泛减少，而AD仅影响默认模式网络（DMN）与楔前叶之间的连接。这些效应主要与局部灰质体积有关。我们的研究结果表明，衰老对全脑的功能脑交互有重大影响，而AD的特征是DMN-楔前叶后部连贯性额外降低。
