Analysis of Functional Connectivity Changes from Childhood to Old Age: A Study Using HCP-D, HCP-YA, and HCP-A Datasets
Abstract:
We present a new clustering-enabled regression approach designed to investigate how functional connectivity (FC) of the entire brain changes from childhood to old age for healthy subjects. By applying this method to aggregated fMRI data from three Human Connectome Project studies, we identify brain regions that undergo synchronized age-related changes in FC and reveal diverse patterns of these changes across different regions. Most brain connections between pairs of regions experience minimal yet statistically significant FC changes with age. Only a tiny proportion of connections exhibit practically significant age-related changes in FC. Among these connections, FC between brain regions in the same functional network tends to decrease over time, while FC between regions in different networks demonstrates various patterns of age-related changes, underscoring the intricate nature of brain development and aging processes. Moreover, our research uncovers sex-specific trends in FC changes. Females show much higher FC within the default mode network, whereas males display higher FC across several more brain networks. These findings underscore the importance of considering sex-specific patterns in understanding how aging impacts brain connectivity.