Altered Connectivity of Task Related Functional Networks in Healthy Aging

Maleki Balajoo, Somayeh; Asemani, Davoud; Soltanian-Zadeh, Hamid

doi:10.22041/ijbme.2015.19294

Document Type : Technical note

Authors

¹ Ph.D Student, Bioelectric Department, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

² Assistant Professor, Bioelectric Department, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

³ Professor, CIPCE, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran - Professor, School of Cognitive Science, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, IPM, Tehran, Iran - Image Analysis Laboratory, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Michigan, USA

10.22041/ijbme.2015.19294

Abstract

Although the cognitive deficits due to age-related brain differences have been largely analyzed, the altered connectivity of task related functional networks in aging requires more studies. As the brain of old adults experience some alterations in task performance during cognitive challenges, the related effects on connectivity of functional networks are here evaluated using event-related functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The fMRI data have been acquired for simple visual and motor tasks. For each subject, several Functional Connectivity (FC) networks including, motor, visual and the default mode networks are firstly calculated using a conventional voxel-wise correlation analysis with predefined region of interest. Then, the strength of functional connectivity is assessed and compared for different age groups. The current study has evaluated three hypotheses on FC of aging brain: the frontal regions involved with motor network try to compensate for declines in the posterior regions, default-mode network is less suppressed and, the posterior regions involved with visual network exhibit less connectivity. The first two hypotheses are accepted by analysis results but visual network behaves differently. Also, results show that the task related functional connectivity is considerably altered in old adults compared to young adults. Old adults demonstrate higher connectivity strength on average with a slightly smaller variance than young adults.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Biomedical Image Processing / Medical Image Processing

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Iranian Journal of Biomedical Engineering

Altered Connectivity of Task Related Functional Networks in Healthy Aging

References

References

Volume 9, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
April 2015
Pages 99-111

Altered Connectivity of Task Related Functional Networks in Healthy Aging

References

References

Volume 9, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1April 2015Pages 99-111

Volume 9, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
April 2015
Pages 99-111