Age-related changes to brain energetics revealed by PET/MRI imaging

Aging is accompanied by several neurophysiological changes. Of recent interest are age-related changes in brain energetics-how the brain produces and uses energy. In vitro, preclinical, and genetic investigations point to a general decline in the efficiency of brain energetics in aging, which may help explain age-related changes in mood, cognition, movement, and behaviour, as well as an increased likelihood of developing neurodegenerative disorders. We hypothesized that age-related alterations to brain energetics are observable using functional neuroimaging data from healthy individuals (N = 24, 35-80 years), and that alterations may occur in regions associated with neurodegenerative pathology. Specifically, we jointly analyzed cerebral glucose metabolism and blood flow data, defining novel metrics that capture regional variability in processes related to relative energy production (rEP) and relative aerobic glycolysis (rAG), an energy production mechanism. By applying Scaled Subprofile Modeling Principal Component Analysis (SSM-PCA) to these metrics, we identified spatial covariance patterns that capture a widespread age-related restructuring of brain energetics. Broadly, an age-related rEP pattern (r_age² = 0.72) consisted of rEP increases in frontal, basal ganglia, and brainstem regions, coupled with decreases in occipitoparietal regions, while an age-related rAG pattern (r_age² = 0.65) revealed rAG increases in substantia nigra and occipitoparietal regions and decreases in caudate and frontal regions. Finally, by comparing these patterns to well-known metabolic patterns related to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, we identified the strongest topological similarity and covarying pattern expression between the age-related rEP pattern and the Parkinson's Disease Related Pattern (PDRP). These results provide in vivo support for altered brain energetics with age and potential neurophysiological similarities between aging and neurodegeneration.