Year: 2013
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: We use entropy to characterize intrinsic ageing properties of the human brain. Analysis of fMRI data from a large dataset of individuals, using resting state BOLD signals, demonstrated that a functional entropy associated with brain activity increases with age. During an average lifespan, the entropy, which was calculated from a population of individuals, increased by approximately 0.1 bits, due to correlations in BOLD activity becoming more widely distributed. We attribute this to the number of excitatory neurons and the excitatory conductance decreasing with age. Incorporating these properties into a computational model leads to quantitatively similar results to the fMRI data. Our dataset involved males and females and we found significant differences between them. The entropy of males at birth was lower than that of females. However, the entropies of the two sexes increase at different rates, and intersect at approximately 50 years; after this age, males have a larger entropy.
Source: Scientific Reports
DOI: 10.1038/srep02853
Authors: Y. Yao, W. L. Lu, B. Xu, C. B. Li, C. P. Lin, D. Waxman, J. F. Feng
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
Funders: European Commission, National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Science Council, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foundation for the Author of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of the People's Republic of China, Fudan University, China Scholarship Council, National Central University, Shanghai Rising-Star Program, National Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions
OpenAlex ID: W1990169300