Johansson Jarkko, Wåhlin Anders, Lundquist Anders, Brandmaier Andreas M, Lindenberger Ulman, Nyberg Lars
Department of Radiation Sciences, Diagnostic Radiology, Umeå University, S-90187 Umeå, Sweden.
Umeå Center for Functional Brain Imaging (UFBI), Umeå University, S-90187 Umeå, Sweden.
Aging Brain. 2022 Jan 10;2:100027. doi: 10.1016/j.nbas.2021.100027. eCollection 2022.
Brain maintenance has been identified as a major determinant of successful memory aging. However, the extent to which brain maintenance in support of successful memory aging is specific to memory-related brain regions or forms part of a brain-wide phenomenon is unresolved. Here, we used longitudinal brain-wide gray matter MRI volumes in 262 healthy participants aged 55 to 80 years at baseline to investigate separable dimensions of brain atrophy, and explored the links of these dimensions to different dimensions of cognitive change. We statistically adjusted for common causes of change in both brain and cognition to reveal a potentially unique signature of brain maintenance related to successful memory aging. Critically, medial temporal lobe (MTL)/hippocampal change and episodic memory change were characterized by unique, residual variance beyond general factors of change in brain and cognition, and a reliable association between these two residualized variables was established ( = 0.36, p < 0.01). The present study is the first to provide solid evidence for a specific association between changes in (MTL)/hippocampus and episodic memory in normal human aging. We conclude that hippocampus-specific brain maintenance relates to the specific preservation of episodic memory in old age, in line with the notion that brain maintenance operates at both general and domain-specific levels.
大脑维持已被确定为记忆成功老化的一个主要决定因素。然而，支持记忆成功老化的大脑维持在多大程度上特定于与记忆相关的脑区，或者是全脑现象的一部分，这一问题尚未得到解决。在这里，我们使用了262名年龄在55至80岁之间的健康参与者在基线时的全脑灰质MRI纵向体积，来研究脑萎缩的不同维度，并探讨这些维度与认知变化不同维度之间的联系。我们对大脑和认知变化的共同原因进行了统计调整，以揭示与记忆成功老化相关的大脑维持的潜在独特特征。至关重要的是，内侧颞叶（MTL）/海马体变化和情景记忆变化的特征是，除了大脑和认知变化的一般因素之外，还存在独特的剩余方差，并且在这两个残差变量之间建立了可靠的关联（r = 0.36，p < 0.01）。本研究首次为正常人类衰老过程中（MTL）/海马体变化与情景记忆之间的特定关联提供了确凿证据。我们得出结论，海马体特异性的大脑维持与老年情景记忆的特异性保存有关，这与大脑维持在一般和特定领域水平上都起作用的观点一致。
