Network Connectivity of Motor Control in the Ageing Brain

Overview

Journal Neuroimage Clin

Publisher Elsevier

Specialties Neurology
Radiology

Date 2018 Mar 20

PMID 29552486

Citations 28

Authors

J Michely

L J Volz

F Hoffstaedter

M Tittgemeyer

S B Eickhoff

G R Fink

C Grefkes

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Older individuals typically display stronger regional brain activity than younger subjects during motor performance. However, knowledge regarding age-related changes of motor network interactions between brain regions remains scarce. We here investigated the impact of ageing on the interaction of cortical areas during movement selection and initiation using dynamic causal modelling (DCM). We found that age-related psychomotor slowing was accompanied by increases in both regional activity and effective connectivity, especially for 'core' motor coupling targeting primary motor cortex (M1). Interestingly, younger participants within the older group showed strongest connectivity targeting M1, which steadily decreased with advancing age. Conversely, prefrontal influences on the motor system increased with advancing age, and were inversely correlated with reduced parietal influences and core motor coupling. Interestingly, higher net coupling within the prefrontal-premotor-M1 axis predicted faster psychomotor speed in ageing. Hence, as opposed to a uniform age-related decline, our findings are compatible with the idea of different age-related compensatory mechanisms, with an important role of the prefrontal cortex compensating for reduced coupling within the core motor network.

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