The Organisation of the Elderly Connectome

TL;DR

This study maps the brain network organization in healthy elderly individuals, revealing preserved hub features, sexual dimorphisms, and lateralized subnetworks, offering a baseline for understanding neurodegenerative diseases.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed characterization of the elderly connectome, highlighting similarities to adult networks and identifying age-related and sex-related differences.

Findings

Hub-region topology is consistent with adult data.

Females show stronger inter-hemispheric connections.

Left and right subnetworks are specialized for language and visuospatial functions.

Abstract

Investigations of the human connectome have elucidated core features of adult structural networks, particularly the crucial role of hub-regions. However, little is known regarding network organisation of the healthy elderly connectome, a crucial prelude to the systematic study of neurodegenerative disorders. Here, whole-brain probabilistic tractography was performed on high-angular diffusion-weighted images acquired from 115 healthy elderly subjects, whom were 76 to 94 years old. Structural networks were reconstructed between 512 cortical and subcortical brain regions. We sought to investigate the architectural features of hub-regions, as well as left-right asymmetries, and sexual dimorphisms. We observed that the topology of hub-regions is consistent with adult connectomic data, and more importantly, their architectural features reflect their ongoing vital role in network communication. We also found substantial sexual dimorphisms, with females exhibiting stronger inter-hemispheric connections between cingulate and prefrontal cortices. Lastly, we demonstrate intriguing left-lateralized subnetworks consistent with the neural circuitry specialised for language and executive functions, while rightward subnetworks were dominant in visual and visuospatial streams. These findings provide insights into healthy brain ageing and provide a benchmark for the study of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimers disease and Frontotemporal Dementia.