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Common and unique brain aging patterns between females and males quantified by large-scale deep learning
Yuhui Du1,2, Zhen Yuan1, Jing Sui3
1School of Computer and Information Technology, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China.
Human Brain Mapping
|September 3, 2024
Summary
Aging reduces brain functional connectivity in both sexes, impacting cognitive control regions most significantly. Females show faster brain aging changes than males, revealing unique gender-specific patterns in brain aging.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Gerontology
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Aging significantly impacts human brain function, but comprehensive understanding of sex-specific changes remains incomplete.
- Previous research highlights age-related brain alterations, yet detailed insights into commonalities and differences between males and females are limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify primary brain functional connectivity (FC) changes associated with normal aging.
- To reveal similarities and differences in brain aging patterns between males and females.
- To utilize deep learning and explainable AI for analyzing large-scale neuroimaging data.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of resting-state functional connectivity (FC) in 25,582 healthy participants (ages 49-76) from the UK Biobank.
- Deployment of deep learning models with nested cross-validation to classify age-related FC changes separately for males and females.
- Validation of identified gender-common and gender-specific aging-related FCs using independent datasets and additional classifiers.
Main Results:
- Aging is associated with reduced brain functional interactions in both sexes, particularly decreased positive within-domain connectivity and increased negative between-domain connectivity.
- Regions involved in cognitive control exhibit the most pronounced age-related alterations in both males and females.
- Sex-specific aging effects involve interactions between cognitive control and default mode, visual, auditory, and frontoparietal networks, with females demonstrating accelerated functional changes.
Conclusions:
- Aging universally leads to decreased brain functional connectivity, with cognitive control regions being highly susceptible.
- Distinct patterns of brain aging exist between males and females, particularly in network interactions.
- Females experience more rapid brain functional aging compared to males, underscoring the importance of sex as a biological variable in aging research.
