scholarly journals Conservative and disruptive modes of adolescent change in human brain functional connectivity

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (6) ◽  
pp. 3248-3253 ◽  
Author(s):  
František Váša ◽  
Rafael Romero-Garcia ◽  
Manfred G. Kitzbichler ◽  
Jakob Seidlitz ◽  
Kirstie J. Whitaker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Aerobic Glycolysis ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Subcortical Regions ◽  
Cortical Regions

Adolescent changes in human brain function are not entirely understood. Here, we used multiecho functional MRI (fMRI) to measure developmental change in functional connectivity (FC) of resting-state oscillations between pairs of 330 cortical regions and 16 subcortical regions in 298 healthy adolescents scanned 520 times. Participants were aged 14 to 26 y and were scanned on 1 to 3 occasions at least 6 mo apart. We found 2 distinct modes of age-related change in FC: “conservative” and “disruptive.” Conservative development was characteristic of primary cortex, which was strongly connected at 14 y and became even more connected in the period from 14 to 26 y. Disruptive development was characteristic of association cortex and subcortical regions, where connectivity was remodeled: connections that were weak at 14 y became stronger during adolescence, and connections that were strong at 14 y became weaker. These modes of development were quantified using the maturational index (MI), estimated as Spearman’s correlation between edgewise baseline FC (at 14 y, FC14) and adolescent change in FC (ΔFC14−26), at each region. Disruptive systems (with negative MI) were activated by social cognition and autobiographical memory tasks in prior fMRI data and significantly colocated with prior maps of aerobic glycolysis (AG), AG-related gene expression, postnatal cortical surface expansion, and adolescent shrinkage of cortical thickness. The presence of these 2 modes of development was robust to numerous sensitivity analyses. We conclude that human brain organization is disrupted during adolescence by remodeling of FC between association cortical and subcortical areas.

scholarly journals Conservative and disruptive modes of adolescent change in brain functional connectivity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
František Váša ◽  
Rafael Romero-Garcia ◽  
Manfred G. Kitzbichler ◽  
Jakob Seidlitz ◽  
Kirstie J. Whitaker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Aerobic Glycolysis ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Strongly Connected

AbstractAdolescent changes in human brain function are not entirely understood. Here we used multi-echo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure developmental change in functional connectivity (FC) of resting-state oscillations between pairs of 330 cortical regions and 16 subcortical regions in N=298 healthy adolescents. Participants were aged 14-26 years and were scanned on two or more occasions at least 6 months apart. We found two distinct modes of age-related change in FC: “conservative” and “disruptive”. Conservative development was characteristic of primary cortex, which was strongly connected at 14 years and became even more connected in the period 14-26 years. Disruptive development was characteristic of association cortex, hippocampus and amygdala, which were not strongly connected at 14 years but became more strongly connected during adolescence. We defined the maturational index (MI) as the signed coefficient of the linear relationship between baseline FC (at 14 years,FC14) and adolescent change in FC (∆FC14−26). Disruptive systems (with negative MI) were functionally specialised for social cognition and autobiographical memory and were significantly co-located with prior maps of aerobic glycolysis (AG), AG-related gene expression, post-natal expansion of cortical surface area, and adolescent shrinkage of cortical depth. We conclude that human brain organization is disrupted during adolescence by the emergence of strong functional connectivity of subcortical nuclei and association cortical areas, representing metabolically expensive re-modelling of synaptic connectivity between brain regions that were not strongly connected in childhood. We suggest that this re-modelling process may support emergence of social skills and self-awareness during healthy human adolescence.

scholarly journals Age-Related Reorganizational Changes in Modularity and Functional Connectivity of Human Brain Networks

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 662-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Song ◽  
Rasmus M. Birn ◽  
Mélanie Boly ◽  
Timothy B. Meier ◽  
Veena A. Nair ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Age Related

scholarly journals Quantitative MRI Provides Markers Of Intra-, Inter-Regional, And Age-Related Differences In Young Adult Cortical Microstructure

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Carey ◽  
Francesco Caprini ◽  
Micah Allen ◽  
Antoine Lutti ◽  
Nikolaus Weiskopf ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Water Content ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Free Water ◽  
Tissue Water Content ◽  
Tissue Water ◽  
Quantitative Mr ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cortical Regions ◽  
Macromolecular Content

Measuring the structural composition of the cortex is critical to understanding typical development, yet few investigations in humans have charted markers in vivo that are sensitive to tissue microstructural attributes. Here, we used a well-validated quantitative MR protocol to measure four parameters (R1, MT, R2*, PD*) that differ in their sensitivity to facets of the tissue microstructural environment (R1, MT: myelin, macromolecular content; R2*: paramagnetic ions, i.e., iron; PD*: free water content). Mapping these parameters across cortical regions in a young adult cohort (18-30 years, N=93) revealed expected patterns of increased macromolecular content as well as reduced tissue water content in primary and primary adjacent cortical regions. Mapping across cortical depth within regions showed decreased expression of myelin and related processes - but increased tissue water content - when progressing from the grey/white to the grey/pial boundary, in all regions. Charting developmental change in cortical microstructure, we found that parameters with the greatest sensitivity to tissue myelin (R1 & MT) showed linear increases with age across frontal and parietal cortex (change 0.5-1.0% per year). Overlap of robust age effects for both parameters emerged in left inferior frontal, right parietal and bilateral pre-central regions. Our findings afford an improved understanding of ontogeny in early adulthood and offer normative quantitative MR data for inter- and intra-cortical composition, which may be used as benchmarks in further studies.

scholarly journals Adolescent tuning of association cortex in human structural brain networks

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
František Váša ◽  
Jakob Seidlitz ◽  
Rafael Romero-Garcia ◽  
Kirstie J. Whitaker ◽  
Gideon Rosenthal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sharp Decrease ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Structural Correlation ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cortical Regions ◽  
Structural Networks ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Age Related Changes

AbstractMotivated by prior data on local cortical shrinkage and intracortical myelination, we predicted age-related changes in topological organisation of cortical structural networks during adolescence. We estimated structural correlation from magnetic resonance imaging measures of cortical thickness at 308 regions in a sample of N=297 healthy participants, aged 14-24 years. We used a novel sliding-window analysis to measure age-related changes in network attributes globally, locally and in the context of several community partitions of the network. We found that the strength of structural correlation generally decreased as a function of age. Association cortical regions demonstrated a sharp decrease in nodal degree (hubness) from 14 years, reaching a minimum at approximately 19 years, and then levelling off or even slightly increasing until 24 years. Greater and more prolonged age-related changes in degree of cortical regions within the brain network were associated with faster rates of adolescent cortical myelination and shrinkage. The brain regions that demonstrated the greatest age-related changes were concentrated within prefrontal modules. We conclude that human adolescence is associated with biologically plausible changes in structural imaging markers of brain network organization, consistent with the concept of tuning or consolidating anatomical connectivity between frontal cortex and the rest of the connectome.

scholarly journals Adolescence is associated with genomically patterned consolidation of the hubs of the human brain connectome

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (32) ◽  
pp. 9105-9110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirstie J. Whitaker ◽  
Petra E. Vértes ◽  
Rafael Romero-Garcia ◽  
František Váša ◽  
Michael Moutoussis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Brain Maturation ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Projection Neurons ◽  
Consolidation Process ◽  
Developmental Variation ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Brain Connectome ◽  
Age Related ◽  
High Incidence

How does human brain structure mature during adolescence? We used MRI to measure cortical thickness and intracortical myelination in 297 population volunteers aged 14–24 y old. We found and replicated that association cortical areas were thicker and less myelinated than primary cortical areas at 14 y. However, association cortex had faster rates of shrinkage and myelination over the course of adolescence. Age-related increases in cortical myelination were maximized approximately at the internal layer of projection neurons. Adolescent cortical myelination and shrinkage were coupled and specifically associated with a dorsoventrally patterned gene expression profile enriched for synaptic, oligodendroglial- and schizophrenia-related genes. Topologically efficient and biologically expensive hubs of the brain anatomical network had greater rates of shrinkage/myelination and were associated with overexpression of the same transcriptional profile as cortical consolidation. We conclude that normative human brain maturation involves a genetically patterned process of consolidating anatomical network hubs. We argue that developmental variation of this consolidation process may be relevant both to normal cognitive and behavioral changes and the high incidence of schizophrenia during human brain adolescence.

scholarly journals The heritability of multi-modal connectivity in human brain activity

eLife ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giles L Colclough ◽  
Stephen M Smith ◽  
Thomas E Nichols ◽  
Anderson M Winkler ◽  
Stamatios N Sotiropoulos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Beta Band ◽  
Common Environment ◽  
Human Connectome Project ◽  
Oscillatory Power ◽  
The Common ◽  
Cortical Regions

Patterns of intrinsic human brain activity exhibit a profile of functional connectivity that is associated with behaviour and cognitive performance, and deteriorates with disease. This paper investigates the relative importance of genetic factors and the common environment between twins in determining this functional connectivity profile. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on 820 subjects from the Human Connectome Project, and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings from a subset, the heritability of connectivity among 39 cortical regions was estimated. On average over all connections, genes account for about 15% of the observed variance in fMRI connectivity (and about 10% in alpha-band and 20% in beta-band oscillatory power synchronisation), which substantially exceeds the contribution from the environment shared between twins. Therefore, insofar as twins share a common upbringing, it appears that genes, rather than the developmental environment, have the dominant role in determining the coupling of neuronal activity.

scholarly journals Functional Connectivity in Aging

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziskus Liem ◽  
Linda Geerligs ◽  
Jessica S. Damoiseaux ◽  
Daniel S. Margulies
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Brain Structure And Function ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Brain

A large body of research shows that aging is accompanied by localized changes in brain structure and function. However, over the past decade the neuroimaging community has begun to recognize the importance of investigating the brain as a network. Brain regions don’t function independently, rather they form an expansive network that allows for communication between distant areas and enables complex cognitive functioning. Hence, age-related changes in the network structure might explain changes in cognitive functioning.Characterizing this network by investigating the brain’s functional connectivity has enabled new insights into brain organization. In this chapter, we will outline how the brain’s functional connectivity is affected by aging and how changes in functional connectivity relate to changes in cognitive functioning. We will address how neurodegenerative pathology influences functional connectivity and how, based on these measurements, biomarkers for clinical outcome might be developed in the future.

scholarly journals Topographic preservation of functional connectivity among the association areas in the human cerebral cortex

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Koide-Majima ◽  
Shinji Nishimoto
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Sensorimotor Cortex ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Cortical Region ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Human Cerebral Cortex ◽  
Connectivity Patterns ◽  
Cortical Regions

SummaryIn the human sensorimotor cortex, some long-range corticocortical connections appear to preserve a fine-scale topology, in which physically close locations in the cortical region are functionally connected to physically close locations in other cortical regions. However, little is known about whether such topography preservation is unique to the sensorimotor areas or is general across other cortical areas. To investigate this question, we measured voxel-level functional connectivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and visualized the fine-scale spatial organization of the connectivity patterns across the cortical surface. We found topographical preservation across regions, including the default mode network. Our results suggest that the topographical preservation of functional connectivity is not restricted to the sensorimotor cortex but also occurs in the association cortex.

scholarly journals Dissect Relationships Between Gene Co-expression and Functional Connectivity in Human Brain

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xue Zhang ◽  
Yingying Xie ◽  
Jie Tang ◽  
Wen Qin ◽  
Feng Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Functional Networks ◽  
Expression Data ◽  
Biological Functions ◽  
Functional Connections ◽  
Postmortem Brains ◽  
Specific Association ◽  
Cortical Regions

Although recent evidence indicates an association between gene co-expression and functional connectivity in human brain, specific association patterns remain largely unknown. Here, using neuroimaging-based functional connectivity data of living brains and brain-wide gene expression data of postmortem brains, we performed comprehensive analyses to dissect relationships between gene co-expression and functional connectivity. We identified 125 connectivity-related genes (20 novel genes) enriched for dendrite extension, signaling pathway and schizophrenia, and 179 gene-related functional connections mainly connecting intra-network regions, especially homologous cortical regions. In addition, 51 genes were associated with connectivity in all brain functional networks and enriched for action potential and schizophrenia; in contrast, 51 genes showed network-specific modulatory effects and enriched for ion transportation. These results indicate that functional connectivity is unequally affected by gene expression, and connectivity-related genes with different biological functions are involved in connectivity modulation of different networks.

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