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Cognitive performance in healthy older adults relates to spontaneous switching between states of functional connectivity during rest.

ABSTRACT: Growing evidence has shown that brain activity at rest slowly wanders through a repertoire of different states, where whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) temporarily settles into distinct FC patterns. Nevertheless, the functional role of resting-state activity remains unclear. Here, we investigate how the switching behavior of resting-state FC relates with cognitive performance in healthy older adults. We analyse resting-state fMRI data from 98 healthy adults previously categorized as being among the best or among the worst performers in a cohort study of >1000 subjects aged 50+ who underwent neuropsychological assessment. We use a novel approach focusing on the dominant FC pattern captured by the leading eigenvector of dynamic FC matrices. Recurrent FC patterns - or states - are detected and characterized in terms of lifetime, probability of occurrence and switching profiles. We find that poorer cognitive performance is associated with weaker FC temporal similarity together with altered switching between FC states. These results provide new evidence linking the switching dynamics of FC during rest with cognitive performance in later life, reinforcing the functional role of resting-state activity for effective cognitive processing.

SUBMITTER: Cabral J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5506029 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cognitive performance in healthy older adults relates to spontaneous switching between states of functional connectivity during rest.

Cabral Joana J Vidaurre Diego D Marques Paulo P Magalhães Ricardo R Silva Moreira Pedro P Miguel Soares José J Deco Gustavo G Sousa Nuno N Kringelbach Morten L ML

Scientific reports 20170711 1

Growing evidence has shown that brain activity at rest slowly wanders through a repertoire of different states, where whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) temporarily settles into distinct FC patterns. Nevertheless, the functional role of resting-state activity remains unclear. Here, we investigate how the switching behavior of resting-state FC relates with cognitive performance in healthy older adults. We analyse resting-state fMRI data from 98 healthy adults previously categorized as being ...[more]

PMID: 28698644

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Project description:ObjectivesIn healthy aging, the way people cope differently with cognitive and neural decline is influenced by exposure to cognitively enriching life-experiences. Education is one of them, so that in general, the higher the education, the better the expected cognitive performance in aging. At the neural level, it is not clear yet how education can differentiate resting state functional connectivity profiles and their cognitive underpinnings. Thus, with this study, we aimed to investigate whether the variable education allowed for a finer description of age-related differences in cognition and resting state FC.MethodsWe analyzed in 197 healthy individuals (137 young adults aged 20-35 and 60 older adults aged 55-80 from the publicly available LEMON database), a pool of cognitive and neural variables, derived from magnetic resonance imaging, in relation to education. Firstly, we assessed age-related differences, by comparing young and older adults. Then, we investigated the possible role of education in outlining such differences, by splitting the group of older adults based on their education.ResultsIn terms of cognitive performance, older adults with higher education and young adults were comparable in language and executive functions. Interestingly, they had a wider vocabulary compared to young adults and older adults with lower education. Concerning functional connectivity, the results showed significant age- and education-related differences within three networks: the Visual-Medial, the Dorsal Attentional, and the Default Mode network (DMN). For the DMN, we also found a relationship with memory performance, which strengthen the evidence that this network has a specific role in linking cognitive maintenance and FC at rest in healthy aging.DiscussionOur study revealed that education contributes to differentiating cognitive and neural profiles in healthy older adults. Also, the DMN could be a key network in this context, as it may reflect some compensatory mechanisms relative to memory capacities in older adults with higher education.

Project description:Analysis of brain functional connectivity (FC) could provide insight in how and why cognitive functions decline even in healthy aging (HA). Despite FC being established as fluctuating over time even in the resting state (RS), dynamic functional connectivity (DFC) studies involving healthy elderly individuals and assessing how these patterns relate to cognitive performance are yet scarce. In our recent study we showed that fractal temporal scaling of functional connections in RS is not only reduced in HA, but also predicts increased response latency and reduced task solving accuracy. However, in that work we did not address changes in the dynamics of fractal connectivity (FrC) strength itself and its plausible relationship with mental capabilities. Therefore, here we analyzed RS electroencephalography recordings of the same subject cohort as previously, consisting of 24 young and 19 healthy elderly individuals, who also completed 7 different cognitive tasks after data collection. Dynamic fractal connectivity (dFrC) analysis was carried out via sliding-window detrended cross-correlation analysis (DCCA). A machine learning method based on recursive feature elimination was employed to select the subset of connections most discriminative between the two age groups, identifying 56 connections that allowed for classifying participants with an accuracy surpassing 92%. Mean of DCCA was found generally increased, while temporal variability of FrC decreased in the elderly when compared to the young group. Finally, dFrC indices expressed an elaborate pattern of associations-assessed via Spearman correlation-with cognitive performance scores in both groups, linking fractal connectivity strength and variance to increased response latency and reduced accuracy in the elderly population. Our results provide further support for the relevance of FrC dynamics in understanding age-related cognitive decline and might help to identify potential targets for future intervention strategies.

Dataset Information

Cognitive performance in healthy older adults relates to spontaneous switching between states of functional connectivity during rest.

Publications

Cognitive performance in healthy older adults relates to spontaneous switching between states of functional connectivity during rest.

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