Noradrenergic-dependent Functions Are Associated with Age-related Locus Coeruleus Signal Intensity Differences

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2020 Apr 7

PMID 32249849

Citations 64

Authors

Kathy Y Liu

Rogier A Kievit

Kamen A Tsvetanov

Matthew J Betts

Emrah Duzel

James B Rowe

Robert Howard

Dorothea Hammerer

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The locus coeruleus (LC), the origin of noradrenergic modulation of cognitive and behavioral function, may play an important role healthy ageing and in neurodegenerative conditions. We investigated the functional significance of age-related differences in mean normalized LC signal intensity values (LC-CR) in magnetization-transfer (MT) images from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) cohort - an open-access, population-based dataset. Using structural equation modelling, we tested the pre-registered hypothesis that putatively noradrenergic (NA)-dependent functions would be more strongly associated with LC-CR in older versus younger adults. A unidimensional model (within which LC-CR related to a single factor representing all cognitive and behavioral measures) was a better fit with the data than the a priori two-factor model (within which LC-CR related to separate NA-dependent and NA-independent factors). Our findings support the concept that age-related reduction of LC structural integrity is associated with impaired cognitive and behavioral function.

Citing Articles

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