![]() 7 Understanding age-related alterations in human brain networks can help better understand the cognitive declines, guide early diagnosis of geriatric diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, 8 Parkinson’s disease, 9 and other dementias in older patients, and provide insight into effective treatments for these illnesses. Recent studies have reported: (1) a decrease of functional connectivity in default mode network (DMN) and dorsal attention network 5 (2) an increase of functional connectivity in somatosensory and subcortical networks 5 (3) age-related effects on brain network connectivity 6 and (4) age-induced alterations in modularity and the number of hubs of the brain network. 4 These findings explain well that, as people age, there is a decrease in their cognitive abilities, such as memory, attention, and concentration, which are functions controlled by the prefrontal cortex in humans. 1, 3 Early studies have reported the preservation of small-world and economic brain characteristics in older adults, 1 with a decrease of efficiency mostly in frontal and temporal cortical and subcortical regions. Some research studies have shown that the decline of gray matter in older individuals is most responsible for age-related changes in brain anatomy. 1, 2 Both anatomical and functional brain networks change in their properties as normal aging commences in humans. The human brain is organized in a set of networks, with anatomical brain regions involved in either individualized processing or integration with other brain regions, to accomplish different functions. Our results showed consistent findings with published literature and also demonstrated the feasibility of whole-head fNIRS measurements to assess age-dependent changes in resting-state brain networks. These obvious shifts of hubs may potentially indicate decreases of the decision-making, memory, and other high-order functions as people age. ![]() In addition, young adults showed the abundance of hubs in the prefrontal cortex, whereas older adults revealed the hub shifts to the sensorimotor cortex. Older adults showed an overall decline of both global and local efficiency compared to young adults, as well as the decline of small-worldness. Both local and global graph metrics were computed to identify the age-related changes of topographical brain networks. Five to eight minutes of resting-state brain hemodynamic signals were recorded from 48 participants (18 young adults and 30 older adults) with 133 optical channels covering the majority of the cortical regions. ![]() This study applied whole brain fNIRS measurement, combined with graph theory analysis, to assess the age-dependent changes in resting-state brain networks. Moreover, little is known about the feasibility of using fNIRS to assess age-related changes in brain connectomes. Few reports have been found in studies of functional brain networks using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). A good understanding of age-dependent changes and modifications in brain networks is crucial for fully exploring the effects of aging on the human brain. ![]()
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