Characterising brain connectivity along the lifespan in a rodent model of healthy ageing
The brain parenchyma undergoes several structural changes throughout life, which have a ma- jor impact on its physiological evolution, and which are behaviorally reflected as changes in cognition and ability. A key question is how age-related structural alterations impact the func- tion of the diffe...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/392228 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/392228 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Brain -- Magnetic resonance imaging -- Data processing Brain -- Aging -- Imaging Envelliment -- Models animals -- Measurement MRI BOLD fMRI rs-fMRI functional connectivity ICA ageing longitudinal rat conectividad funcional envejecimiento rata connectivitat funcional envelliment longitudinal Cervell -- Imatgeria per ressonància magnètica -- Informàtica Cervell -- Envelliment -- Imatgeria Aging -- Animal models -- Mesurament Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Ciències de la salut::Medicina::Neurologia |
| Sumario: | The brain parenchyma undergoes several structural changes throughout life, which have a ma- jor impact on its physiological evolution, and which are behaviorally reflected as changes in cognition and ability. A key question is how age-related structural alterations impact the func- tion of the different areas. Functional connectivity, measured as correlation between brain re- gions during the resting state Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), is a quantitative measure of function that can be reliably used to characterize the evolution of the communication between regions across the lifespan. However, most of the works so far have done it with a hypothesis driven approach. The present work aims to identify the functional connectivity patterns of the whole brain during resting state in a rodent model of healthy ageing. For this purpose, we have followed the standard workflow recently proposed in a consensus paper on functional imag- ing processing in preclinical MRI. We have set up a longitudinal functional MRI experiment to measure functional connectivity in rats at different times. Independent component analysis has been used to identify characteristic resting-state networks and compare them between three different ages, corresponding to adulthood to early senescence. The goal is to highlight region- , sex-, and age-specific patterns that drive the physiological decline in cognition observed in senescence, with potential to identify vulnerable regions in and define targets for intervention. Our results uncovered patterns of increased functional connectivity between adulthood and senescence in several key regions controlling the functions known to be affected by age. Such increase in connectivity can be explained as a compensatory mechanism that allows the brain to cope with reduced microstructural integrity. The study of healthy ageing in absence of disease sets the baseline for the identification of pathological conditions |
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