Dataset Information

Default-mode network dynamics are restricted during high speed discrimination in healthy aging: Associations with neurocognitive status and simulated driving behavior.

ABSTRACT: Numerous daily tasks, including car driving, require fine visuospatial tuning. One such visuospatial ability, speed discrimination, declines with aging but its neural underpinnings remain unknown. In this study, we use fMRI to explore the effect of aging during a high speed discrimination task and its neural underpinnings, along with a complete neuropsychological assessment and a simulated driving evaluation in order to examine how they interact with each other through a multivariate regression approach. Beyond confirming that high speed discrimination performance is diminished in the elderly, we found that this deficit might be partly due to a lack of modulation in the activity and connectivity of the default mode network (DMN) in this age group, as well as an over-recruitment of frontoparietal and cerebellar regions, possibly as a compensatory mechanism. In addition, younger adults tended to drive at faster speeds, a behavior that was associated to adequate DMN dynamics and executive functioning, an effect that seems to be lost in the elderly. In summary, these results reveal how age-related declines in fine visuospatial abilities, such as high speed discrimination, were distinctly mediated by DMN functioning, a mechanism also associated to speeding behavior in a driving simulator.

SUBMITTER: Eudave L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6866270 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Default-mode network dynamics are restricted during high speed discrimination in healthy aging: Associations with neurocognitive status and simulated driving behavior.

Eudave Luis L Martínez Martín M Luis Elkin O EO Pastor María A MA

Human brain mapping 20180701 11

Numerous daily tasks, including car driving, require fine visuospatial tuning. One such visuospatial ability, speed discrimination, declines with aging but its neural underpinnings remain unknown. In this study, we use fMRI to explore the effect of aging during a high speed discrimination task and its neural underpinnings, along with a complete neuropsychological assessment and a simulated driving evaluation in order to examine how they interact with each other through a multivariate regression ...[more]

PMID: 29962070

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Project description:Cognitive impairment affects about 50% of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, but the mechanisms underlying this remain unclear. The default mode network (DMN) has been linked with cognition, but in MS its role is still poorly understood. Moreover, within an extended DMN network including the cerebellum (CBL-DMN), the contribution of cortico-cerebellar connectivity to MS cognitive performance remains unexplored. The present study investigated associations of DMN and CBL-DMN structural connectivity with cognitive processing speed in MS, in both cognitively impaired (CIMS) and cognitively preserved (CPMS) MS patients. 68 MS patients and 22 healthy controls (HCs) completed a symbol digit modalities test (SDMT) and had 3T brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans that included a diffusion weighted imaging protocol. DMN and CBL-DMN tracts were reconstructed with probabilistic tractography. These networks (DMN and CBL-DMN) and the cortico-cerebellar tracts alone were modeled using a graph theoretical approach with fractional anisotropy (FA) as the weighting factor. Brain parenchymal fraction (BPF) was also calculated. In CIMS SDMT scores strongly correlated with the FA-weighted global efficiency (GE) of the network [GE(CBL-DMN): ? = 0.87, R 2 = 0.76, p < 0.001; GE(DMN): ? = 0.82, R 2 = 0.67, p < 0.001; GE(CBL): ? = 0.80, R 2 = 0.64, p < 0.001]. In CPMS the correlation between these measures was significantly lower [GE(CBL-DMN): ? = 0.51, R 2 = 0.26, p < 0.001; GE(DMN): ? = 0.48, R 2 = 0.23, p = 0.001; GE(CBL): ? = 0.52, R 2 = 0.27, p < 0.001] and SDMT scores correlated most with BPF (? = 0.57, R 2 = 0.33, p < 0.001). In a multivariable regression model where SDMT was the independent variable, FA-weighted GE was the only significant explanatory variable in CIMS, while in CPMS BPF and expanded disability status scale were significant. No significant correlation was found in HC between SDMT scores, MRI or network measures. DMN structural GE is related to cognitive performance in MS, and results of CBL-DMN suggest that the cerebellum structural connectivity to the DMN plays an important role in information processing speed decline.

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Dataset Information

Default-mode network dynamics are restricted during high speed discrimination in healthy aging: Associations with neurocognitive status and simulated driving behavior.

Publications

Default-mode network dynamics are restricted during high speed discrimination in healthy aging: Associations with neurocognitive status and simulated driving behavior.

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