Abstract
© 2021, The Author(s). Aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are associated with progressive brain disorganization. Although structural asymmetry is an organizing feature of the cerebral cortex it is unknown whether continuous age- and AD-related cortical degradation alters cortical asymmetry. Here, in multiple longitudinal adult lifespan cohorts we show that higher-order cortical regions exhibiting pronounced asymmetry at age ~20 also show progressive asymmetry-loss across the adult lifespan. Hence, accelerated thinning of the (previously) thicker homotopic hemisphere is a feature of aging. This organizational principle showed high consistency across cohorts in the Lifebrain consortium, and both the topological patterns and temporal dynamics of asymmetry-loss were markedly similar across replicating samples. Asymmetry-change was further accelerated in AD. Results suggest a system-wide dedifferentiation of the adaptive asymmetric organization of heteromodal cortex in aging and AD.
Keywords
Alzheimer's disease, asymmetric thinning, cerebral cortex, adult lifespan
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
2021
Volume
12
Issue
1
Publication Title
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Nature
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
45059
Funders
Funding information : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21057-y#Ack1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Roe, J. M., Vidal-Piñeiro, D., Sørensen, Ø., Brandmaier, A. M., Düzel, S., Gonzalez, H. A., ... Westerhausen, R. (2021). Asymmetric thinning of the cerebral cortex across the adult lifespan is accelerated in Alzheimer’s Disease. Nature Communications, 12, article 721. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21057-y