Talk: Sex Disparities on Effect of Ageing on Brain Network Integrity Across the Lifespan
Speaker: Feng Deng, Trinity College Dublin
Title: Sex Disparities on Effect of Ageing on Brain Network Integrity Across the Lifespan
Emcee: Matteo Mancini
Backend host: Daan Wesselink
Details: https://neuromatch.io/abstract?submis...
Lab website: https://www.lorinanaci.org/
Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.10.14...
Twitter: / fengdeng93
Presented during Neuromatch Conference 3.0, Oct 26-30, 2020.
Summary: Midlife presents a critical period for the beginning of age-related neuropathology and a unique disease-altering window, prior to the manifestation of substantial brain damage. However, how healthy and pathological brain ageing diverge in midlife is poorly understood. It is estimated that 60% of people with Alzheimer’s Disease are women, but the impact of sex differences on age-related brain changes remains largely uncharted territory. We examine changes in functional brain network architecture in a lifespan cohort (N=652) from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience, including young (18-39 years, N=170), midlife (40-59 years, N=204) and older adults (60-88 years, N=278), with a focus on midlife, as well as sex differences. Modular segregation of 10 predefined networks was calculated in resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging data. Sex differences in segregation of the auditory, ventral attention and frontal-parietal networks were present in young adulthood, suggesting inherent differences. Two key brain networks that support high-order cognition, the default mode and frontal-parietal, showed significant age-related loss of segregation from midlife, well before older age. Females showed significantly lower segregation in the frontal-parietal network than males in midlife. The salience network showed sex differences in older adults; again, females had significantly heavier loss of segregation relative to males. The heavier loss of segregation in females from midlife and continuing into older age, in brain networks key for high-order cognition, may provide an avenue for understanding the higher risk load and incidence of age-related neurodegenerative disorders in females relative to males.