Department of Neurology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China.
Department of Radiology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China.
BMC Geriatr. 2022 Jun 24;22(1):519. doi: 10.1186/s12877-022-03226-w.
Aging is related with memory deterioration. However, some older adults demonstrate superior performance compared to age- and education-matched adults, who are referred to as superagers. To explore the neural mechanisms that mediate their unusually successful memory is important not only for the ameliorate the effects of aging in brain, but also for the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. This case-control study is aimed to investigate the effects of volume and function of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons on the cognition of superagers.
The morphometric and resting-state functional MRI analysis, including 34 superagers and 48 typical older adults, were conducted. We compared the basal forebrain gray matter density and related resting-state functional connectivity (FC) in the two groups. To investigate the relationship of FC with cognition, we measure the correlation of significant altered FC and individual cognitive domain.
No significant differences of gray matter density was observed between superagers and typical older adults. The superagers had stronger cortical FC of Ch1-3 with left putamen and insular cortex. The strength of FC positively correlated with global cognition, memory and executive function.
These findings demonstrated that the stronger FC of basal forebrain correlated with specific cognitive difference in global cognition and domains of memory and executive function in superagers.
衰老与记忆衰退有关。然而，一些老年人的表现优于年龄和教育相匹配的成年人，这些人被称为超级老年人。探索介导他们异常成功记忆的神经机制不仅对改善大脑衰老的影响很重要，而且对预防包括阿尔茨海默病在内的神经退行性疾病也很重要。本病例对照研究旨在探讨基底前脑胆碱能神经元的体积和功能对超级老年人认知的影响。
对 34 名超级老年人和 48 名典型老年人进行形态计量学和静息状态功能磁共振成像分析。我们比较了两组基底前脑灰质密度和相关的静息状态功能连接（FC）。为了研究 FC 与认知的关系，我们测量了显著改变的 FC 与个体认知域之间的相关性。
超级老年人和典型老年人之间的灰质密度没有显著差异。超级老年人的左侧壳核和岛叶皮质与 Ch1-3 的皮质 FC 更强。FC 的强度与整体认知、记忆和执行功能呈正相关。
这些发现表明，基底前脑更强的 FC 与超级老年人整体认知以及记忆和执行功能领域的特定认知差异相关。
