Cortical grey matter content is associated with both age and bimanual performance, but is not observed to mediate age-related behavioural decline

• Published in: Brain Structure and Function Vol. 222; no. 1; pp. 437 - 448
• Main Authors: van Ruitenbeek, Peter, Serbruyns, Leen, Solesio-Jofre, Elena, Meesen, Raf, Cuypers, Koen, Swinnen, Stephan P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Aging; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain research; Cell Biology; Cerebral Cortex - anatomy & histology; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Female; Gray Matter - anatomy & histology; Gray Matter - physiology; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Motor Activity; Neurology; Neurosciences; Original Article; Psychomotor Performance; Visual task performance; Young Adult; Sensorimotor network; Bimanual coordination; Mediation; Ageing; Voxel-based morphometry
• ISSN: 1863-2653; 1863-2661; 0340-2061
• DOI: 10.1007/s00429-016-1226-9

Declines in both cortical grey matter and bimanual coordination performance are evident in healthy ageing. However, the relationship between ageing, bimanual performance, and grey matter loss remains unclear, particularly across the whole adult lifespan. Therefore, participants ( N  = 93, range 20–80 years) performed a complex Bimanual Tracking Task, and structural brain images were obtained using magnetic resonance imaging. Analyses revealed that age correlated negatively with task performance. Voxel-based morphometry analysis revealed that age was associated with grey matter declines in task-relevant cortical areas and that grey matter in these areas was negatively associated with task performance. However, no evidence for a mediating effect of grey matter in age-related bimanual performance decline was observed. We propose a new hypothesis that functional compensation may account for the observed absence of mediation, which is in line with the observed pattern of increased inter-individual variance in performance with age.