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Cognitive activity, cognitive function, and brain diffusion characteristics in old age

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Abstract

The objective of this work was to test the hypotheses that a) more frequent cognitive activity in late life is associated with higher brain diffusion anisotropy and lower trace of the diffusion tensor, and b) brain diffusion characteristics partially mediate the association of late life cognitive activity with cognition. As part of a longitudinal cohort study, 379 older people without dementia rated their frequency of participation in cognitive activities, completed a battery of cognitive function tests, and underwent diffusion tensor imaging. We used tract-based spatial statistics to test the association between late life cognitive activity and brain diffusion characteristics. Clusters with statistically significant findings defined regions of interest in which we tested the hypothesis that diffusion characteristics partially mediate the association of late life cognitive activity with cognition. More frequent cognitive activity in late life was associated with higher level of global cognition after adjustment for age, sex, education, and indicators of early life cognitive enrichment (p = 0.001). More frequent cognitive activity was also related to higher fractional anisotropy in the left superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi, left fornix, and corpus callosum, and lower trace in the thalamus (p < 0.05, FWE-corrected). After controlling for fractional anisotropy or trace from these regions, the regression coefficient for the association of late life cognitive activity with cognition was reduced by as much as 26 %. These findings suggest that the association of late life cognitive activity with cognition may be partially mediated by brain diffusion characteristics.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Institute on Aging (R01AG017917, P30AG010161), National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (P20MD006886), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R21NS076827), National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R21EB006525), and the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Conflict of Interest

Konstantinos Arfanakis, Robert S. Wilson, Christopher M. Barth, Ana W. Capuano, Anil Vasireddi, Shengwei Zhang, Debra A. Fleischman, and David A. Bennett declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, and the applicable revisions at the time of the investigation. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Medical Imaging Research Center, M-102, Illinois Institute of Technology, 3440 South Dearborn St., Chicago, IL, 60616, USA

    Konstantinos Arfanakis, Christopher M. Barth, Anil Vasireddi & Shengwei Zhang

  2. Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA

    Konstantinos Arfanakis, Robert S. Wilson, Ana W. Capuano, Debra A. Fleischman & David A. Bennett

  3. Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA

    Konstantinos Arfanakis

  4. Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA

    Robert S. Wilson, Ana W. Capuano, Debra A. Fleischman & David A. Bennett

  5. Department of Behavioral Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA

    Robert S. Wilson & Debra A. Fleischman

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  1. Konstantinos Arfanakis
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  2. Robert S. Wilson
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Correspondence to Konstantinos Arfanakis.

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Arfanakis, K., Wilson, R.S., Barth, C.M. et al. Cognitive activity, cognitive function, and brain diffusion characteristics in old age. Brain Imaging and Behavior 10, 455–463 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-015-9405-5

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