Brain age monotonicity and functional connectivity differences of healthy subjects

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 19; no. 5; p. e0300720
• Main Author: Sorooshyari, Siamak K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 30.05.2024; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Age groups; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Aging; Aging - physiology; Biobanks; Biology and Life Sciences; Brain; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping - methods; Brain research; Computer and Information Sciences; Connectome; Datasets; Demographics; Engineering and Technology; Female; Females; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Gender differences; Healthy Volunteers; Humans; Machine Learning; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Males; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Neural networks; People and Places; Phenotypes; Physical Sciences; Research and Analysis Methods; Theories of aging; Young Adult; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300720

Alterations in the brain’s connectivity or the interactions among brain regions have been studied with the aid of resting state (rs)fMRI data attained from large numbers of healthy subjects of various demographics. This has been instrumental in providing insight into how a phenotype as fundamental as age affects the brain. Although machine learning (ML) techniques have already been deployed in such studies, novel questions are investigated in this work. We study whether young brains develop properties that progressively resemble those of aged brains, and if the aging dynamics of older brains provide information about the aging trajectory in young subjects. The degree of a prospective monotonic relationship will be quantified, and hypotheses of brain aging trajectories will be tested via ML. Furthermore, the degree of functional connectivity across the age spectrum of three datasets will be compared at a population level and across sexes. The findings scrutinize similarities and differences among the male and female subjects at greater detail than previously performed.