Gender- and Age-Specific Differences in Resting-State Functional Connectivity of the Central Autonomic Network in Adulthood

Abstract

Previous functional imaging studies have identified the role of central autonomic network (CAN) in autonomic regulation during various tasks. However, its variability with respect to gender and age, particularly in the resting state, remains poorly understood. Therefore, in this study we systematically investigated gender- and age-related differences in the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) seeded from core regions of this network, namely posterior mid-cingulate gyrus (pMCC), left amygdala, right anterior and left posterior insula, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), using a large cross-sectional adulthood sample. Results revealed that each of the seeded connectivity maps engaged in at least one of the large-scale brain networks including sensorimotor, attentional, basal ganglia, limbic, and default mode networks (DMN). In the early-adulthood stage, females had stronger negative rsFC in pMCC and right anterior INS (aINS) with the medial DMN than males, possibly reflecting their greater suppression of the sympathoexcitation associated with sex hormonal estrogen. Whereas in the late-adulthood stage, they showed stronger positive rsFC in pMCC with postcentral gyrus and weaker negative rsFC with the most DMN, possibly relating to their higher risk of depression, anxiety, and dementia than males after menopause. Moreover, females demonstrated reduced negative rsFC in pMCC with dorsal PCUN/PCC and left AG with advancing age, whereas males showed the opposite pattern, namely increased positive rsFC, in pMCC with right SMG, and in vmPFC with ventral PCUN. We interpret these results as their differences of altered autonomic regulation associated with pain experience and reflective movement, respectively, due to aging. In sum, our findings add in literature that autonomic responses can be also represented intrinsically in the resting brain, and gender- and age-related differences might be associated with sex hormones and sensorimotor abilities, respectively.

Age-Associated Differences of Modules and Hubs in Brain Functional Networks

“…There are no uniform standards of age boundaries for the division of young, middle and old adults. Previous studies applied different age boundaries due to various datasets and research methods and we select the same age boundaries as in previous studies (Sie et al, 2019 ) due to the use of the same dataset. The dataset included 494 healthy volunteers (187 males and 307 females, aged 19–80) in which 2 participants did not complete the resting-state scanning and 31 participants were excluded due to excessive head motion.…”

“…The dataset included 494 healthy volunteers (187 males and 307 females, aged 19–80) in which 2 participants did not complete the resting-state scanning and 31 participants were excluded due to excessive head motion. The remaining 461 participants were grouped into Young (19–34), Middle (35–59), and Old (60–80) age groups (Sie et al, 2019 ), with 170, 183, and 108 subjects in each group. Figure 1 showed the distribution of males and females of the groups.…”

“…The scan lasted for 484 s and acquired 242 volumes in total for each subject. Besides, structural images were acquired to provide an anatomical reference using the following magnetization-prepared rapid gradient echo (MPRAGE) sequence: slices = 176, TR/TE = 1,900/2.52 ms, inversion time (TI) = 900 ms, FA = 90°, FOV = 256 mm × 256 mm , thickness = 1 mm, voxel size = 1 × 1 × 1 mm 3 (Sie et al, 2019 ).…”

Aberrant functional metastability and structural connectivity are associated with rumination in individuals with major depressive disorder

“…Voxel-wise TBSS with permutation tests on the final FA skeleton was conducted to identify differences in white matter integrity between individuals with MDD and the control group using the FSL/RANDOMISE tool (5,000 permutations), controlling for age, gender, and age × gender interaction. We included these covariates in our analyses due to the large age range of our participants and because previous studies suggested that age and gender should be controlled for in functional connectivity studies ( Sie et al, 2019 , C. Zhang et al, 2016 ).…”

MouseCircuits.org: An online repository to guide the circuit era of disordered affect

“…Despite the well-documented human preponderance of females afflicted by mood disorders (104,105), the majority of identified studies utilized males only, or did not report the sex of experimental animals. Importantly, out of the 17 studies that included both male and female animals, one study used males for inhibition and females for activation (106), another used females only for tracing studies (107), and a third used males for optogenetic and females for chemogenetic manipulation (108).…”