Age-related functional connectivity along the hippocampal longitudinal axis

Daniel Yochai Panitz, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Avi Mendelsohn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Accumulated evidence points toward a long-axis functional division of the hippocampus, with its anterior part primarily associated with emotional processes and the posterior with navigation and cognition. It is yet unclear, however, how functional connectivity between areas along the hippocampal longitudinal axis and other brain regions differ, and how they are affected by age. Applying an anatomically driven general linear model-based functional connectivity analysis on a large database of resting-state fMRI data, we demonstrate that independent of age, the posterior hippocampus is functionally connected primarily with sensory and motor areas, the middle hippocampus with the default mode network, and the anterior with limbic and prefrontal regions. Along with an age-related disintegration of intra-hippocampal BOLD signal uniformity, the middle and posterior sub-regions exhibit mostly decreases in their functional connectivity with cortical regions, whereas the anterior hippocampus and ventral striatum appear to become more synchronized with age. These findings indicate that long-axis hippocampal areas are tuned to particular functional networks, which do not age in a unified manner.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1115-1127
Number of pages13
JournalHippocampus
Volume31
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by an Israel Science Foundation (ISF) Grant #1032/19. We would like to thank Anna Vedenichev for technical assistance, and Genela Morris for discussions and critical reading.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Keywords

  • aging
  • fMRI
  • functional connectivity
  • hippocampal long-axis
  • hippocampus

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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