Preserved cognitive functions with age are determined by domain-dependent shifts in network responsivity
Publication Date
2017-05-08Journal Title
Nature Communications
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Volume
8
Number
14743
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Samu, D., Campbell, K., Tsvetanov, K. A., Shafto, M., Cam-CAN,, & Tyler, L. (2017). Preserved cognitive functions with age are determined by domain-dependent shifts in network responsivity. Nature Communications, 8 (14743)https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14743
Abstract
Healthy ageing has disparate effects on different cognitive domains. The neural basis of these differences, however, is largely unknown. We investigated this question by using Independent Components Analysis to obtain functional brain components from 98 healthy participants aged 23–87 years from the population-based Cam-CAN cohort. Participants performed two cognitive tasks that show age-related decrease (fluid intelligence and object naming) and a syntactic comprehension task that shows age-related preservation. We report that activation of task-positive neural components predicts inter-individual differences in performance in each task across the adult lifespan. Furthermore, only the two tasks that show performance declines with age show age-related decreases in task-positive activation of neural components and decreasing default mode (DM) suppression. Our results suggest that distributed, multi-component brain responsivity supports cognition across the adult lifespan, and the maintenance of this, along with maintained DM deactivation, characterizes successful ageing and may explain differential ageing trajectories across cognitive domains.
Keywords
cognitive ageing, default mode, network, responsivity, task-positive
Sponsorship
The Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) research was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant number BB/H008217/1). K.A.T. is supported by Wellcome Trust (RG73750-RRZA/040) and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (PF160048).
Funder references
BBSRC (BB/H008217/1)
WELLCOME TRUST (103838/Z/14/Z)
MRC (unknown)
Medical Research Council (MC_U105597119)
British Academy (pf160048)
Embargo Lift Date
2100-01-01
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14743
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/263291
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International