Mind the brain age: How segmentation and template selection reshape structural connectomes

Diffusion-weighted MRI samples the directional diffusion of water in vivo, and tractography uses this information to reconstruct brain fiber pathways. Mapping streamlines to an anatomical parcellation yields structural connectomes. However, in older adults, where white matter alterations and atrophy are common, the choice of reference template and tissue segmentation could be particularly consequential for obtaining accurate, interpretable structural connectomes. Using a conventional pipeline, we evaluated how these two factors, the normalization template and the segmentation used to constrain anatomically guided tractography, affect connectome estimates in cognitively healthy elderly participants. These methodological choices produced systematic and significant differences in network topology and their relationships with clinically relevant variables across standard connectome measures, particularly in patients with white matter hyperintensities. Age-appropriate normalization and lesion-aware anatomically constrained tractography yielded networks with more plausible anatomy and more consistent relationships with cognition and imaging measures, whereas unconstrained tracking inflated density without improving interpretability. These findings demonstrate that structural connectome outcomes are contingent upon template and segmentation selection. We, therefore, advocate for explicit reporting of these methodological parameters and recommend the use of age-appropriate templates combined with white matter lesion-aware segmentation incorporating anatomically informed constraints.