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Topological organization of the human brain functional connectome across the lifespan
Open accessAbstract
Human brain function undergoes complex transformations across the lifespan. We employed resting-state functional MRI and graph-theory approaches to systematically chart the lifespan trajectory of the topological organization of human whole-brain functional networks in 126 healthy individuals ranging in age from 7 to 85 years. Brain networks were constructed by computing Pearson's correlations in blood-oxygenation-level-dependent temporal fluctuations among 1024 parcellation units followed by graph-based network analyses. We observed that the human brain functional connectome exhibited highly preserved non-random modular and rich club organization over the entire age range studied. Further quantitative analyses revealed linear decreases in modularity and inverted-U shaped trajectories of local efficiency and rich club architecture. Regionally heterogeneous age effects were mainly located in several hubs (e.g., default network, dorsal attention regions). Finally, we observed inverse trajectories of long- and short-distance functional connections, indicating that the reorganization of connectivity concentrates and distributes the brain's functional networks. Our results demonstrate topological changes in the whole-brain functional connectome across nearly the entire human lifespan, providing insights into the neural substrates underlying individual variations in behavior and cognition. These results have important implications for disease connectomics because they provide a baseline for evaluating network impairments in age-related neuropsychiatric disorders.
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“high strength and betweenness hubs in adulthood are largely located within within the default mode, attentional, sensorimotor, and visual areas (Cao et al., 2014; Fransson et al., 2011; Grayson et al., 2014; Hwang et al., 2013)”
From Development of large-scale functional networks from birth to adulthood: A guide to the neuroimaging literature (2017) · cites this paper as Cao et al., 2014
In the citing paper
“Among cortical areas, some have reported increasing hubness of frontal nodes (Cao et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2013) while in other lobes there have been mixed reports of increasing (Cao et al., 2014; Grayson et al., 2014) and decreasing (Wu et al., 2013; Zuo et al., 2012), or stable (Hwang et al., 2013) hubness.”
From Development of large-scale functional networks from birth to adulthood: A guide to the neuroimaging literature (2017) · cites this paper as Cao et al., 2014
In the citing paper
“Returning to the MRI literature, there is convergent evidence that the locations of high-strength and high-betweenness hub regions appear to be stable after 5 years of age (Cao et al., 2014; Grayson et al., 2014; Hwang et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2013; Zuo et al., 2012).”
From Development of large-scale functional networks from birth to adulthood: A guide to the neuroimaging literature (2017) · cites this paper as Cao et al., 2014
In the citing paper
“More detailed network analyses have revealed that specific connections to cortical hub regions increase during childhood and adolescence (Grayson et al., 2014; Hwang et al., 2013) resulting in increased rich club coefficients in adulthood (Cao et al., 2014; Grayson et al., 2014).”
From Development of large-scale functional networks from birth to adulthood: A guide to the neuroimaging literature (2017) · cites this paper as Cao et al., 2014
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Metadata
- Authors
- Cao, M., Wang, J.-H., Dai, Z.-J., Cao, X.-Y., Jiang, L.-L., Fan, F.-M., Song, X.-W., Xia, M.-R., Shu, N., Dong, Q., Milham, M. P., Castellanos, F. X., Zuo, X.-N., & He, Y.
- Affiliations
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research (US)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Zuo, Xi-Nian
- Venue
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-01
- Volume
- 7
- Pages
- 76-93
- ISSN
- 1878-9293 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6987957
- OpenAlex
- W2093597642
- Cited by
- 440
- References
- 102
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 51 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 30 · 2014: 17
- FWCI
- 14.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Repository of Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Natural Science Foundation (81030028, 31221003, 81171409)
- National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (81225012)
- Major Joint Fund for International Cooperation and Exchange of the National Natural Science Foundation (81220108014)
- Open Research Fund of the Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, the Startup Foundation for Distinguished Research Professor (Y0CX492S03)
- Institute of Psychology, the Hundred Talents Program and the Key Research Program (KSZD-EW-TZ-002)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Keywords
- lifespan development, network topology, modularity, rich club, local efficiency, brain network hubs, default mode network, dorsal attention network, resting-state fMRI, graph theory
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Brain, Brain Mapping, Child, Cognition, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Nerve Net, Sex Factors, Connectome
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