Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Women show an increased lifetime risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) compared with men. Characteristic brain connectivity changes, particularly within the default mode network (DMN), have been associated with both symptomatic and preclinical AD, but the impact of sex on DMN function throughout aging is poorly understood. We investigated sex differences in DMN connectivity over the lifespan in 595 cognitively healthy participants from the Human Connectome Project-Aging cohort. We used the intrinsic connectivity distribution (a robust voxel-based metric of functional connectivity) and a seed connectivity approach to determine sex differences within the DMN and between the DMN and whole brain. Compared with men, women demonstrated higher connectivity with age in posterior DMN nodes and lower connectivity in the medial prefrontal cortex. Differences were most prominent in the decades surrounding menopause. Seed-based analysis revealed higher connectivity in women from the posterior cingulate to angular gyrus, which correlated with neuropsychological measures of declarative memory, and hippocampus. Taken together, we show significant sex differences in DMN subnetworks over the lifespan, including patterns in aging women that resemble changes previously seen in preclinical AD. These findings highlight the importance of considering sex in neuroimaging studies of aging and neurodegeneration.
Source: Cerebral Cortex
Institution: Yale University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: Alzheimer's Association, George Washington University, Washington University in St. Louis, Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, National Institutes of Health, McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
Awards: G1044130170, Thalamic Contributions to Functional Network Abnormalities in Alzheimer's Disease, G227026091, G2434699210, G469268657, G5588883112, Medical Scientist Training Program, G7830017015, Mapping the Human Connectome During Typical Aging, Yale Alzheimer Disease Research Center, Yale Clinical and Translational Science Award
OpenAlex ID: W4312114729