Derya Dilara, Wallraven Christian
Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea.
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea.
Exp Neurobiol. 2024 Dec 31;33(6):282-294. doi: 10.5607/en24022.
Research on brain aging using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has typically focused on comparing "older" adults to younger adults. Importantly, these studies have often neglected the middle age group, which is also significantly impacted by brain aging, including by early changes in motor, memory, and cognitive functions. This study aims to address this limitation by examining the resting state networks in middle-aged adults via an exploratory whole-brain ROI-to-ROI analysis. Using rs-fMRI, we compared middle-aged adults (n=30) with younger adults (n=70) via an ROI-to-ROI correlation analysis, showing lower connectivity between the cerebellar (posterior) network and the salience network (left rostral prefrontal cortex), as well as between the salience network and the visual network (occipital regions) in the middle-aged group. This reduced connectivity suggests that aging affects how these brain regions synchronize and process information, potentially impairing the integration of cognitive, sensory, and emotional inputs. Additional within-group analyses showed that middle-aged adults exhibited weakened connections between networks but increased connections within the dorsal attention, fronto-parietal, visual, and default mode networks. In contrast, younger adults demonstrated enhanced connections between networks. These results underscore the role of the cerebellar, salience, and visual networks in brain aging and reveal distinct connectivity patterns associated with signs of early aging.
利用静息态功能磁共振成像（rs-fMRI）对大脑衰老进行的研究通常集中在将“老年”成年人与年轻成年人进行比较。重要的是，这些研究往往忽视了中年人群体，而该群体也受到大脑衰老的显著影响，包括运动、记忆和认知功能的早期变化。本研究旨在通过探索性的全脑感兴趣区（ROI）到感兴趣区分析来检验中年成年人的静息态网络，以解决这一局限性。使用rs-fMRI，我们通过ROI到ROI的相关性分析将中年成年人（n = 30）与年轻成年人（n = 70）进行比较，结果显示中年组中，小脑（后部）网络与突显网络（左侧额前叶皮层）之间以及突显网络与视觉网络（枕叶区域）之间的连接性较低。这种连接性降低表明衰老会影响这些脑区同步和处理信息的方式，可能损害认知、感觉和情感输入的整合。组内进一步分析表明，中年成年人表现出网络间连接减弱，但背侧注意、额顶叶、视觉和默认模式网络内的连接增加。相比之下，年轻成年人表现出网络间连接增强。这些结果强调了小脑、突显和视觉网络在大脑衰老中的作用，并揭示了与早期衰老迹象相关的独特连接模式。
