Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Nature Communications
Volume
12
Issue
1
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
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.
DOI
10.1038/s41467-021-21057-y
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