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Grasp force matching and brain iron content estimated in vivo in older women

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Abstract

Increased brain iron content has been linked to neural degeneration and to age-related decline of cognitive and motor functions. The basal ganglia (BG), which contain significant amount of iron, play an important role in establishing and modulating force requirements in hand grasp to meet specific task demands. However, it is unclear if increased BG iron content contributes to age differences in hand grasp performance. To investigate the relationship between BG iron content and hand grasp force matching in older (65.0 ± 8.9 years) healthy women, participants generated a 20 % maximum voluntary exertion reference force that was matched with the opposite hand in the Contralateral Remembered (CR) and Contralateral Concurrent (CC) conditions and with the same hand in the Ipsilateral Remembered (IR) condition. T2* relaxation times calculated from MRI scans served to estimate iron content in the caudate nucleus (Cd), globus pallidus (GP), and putamen (Pt). Greater iron content in all BG was associated with relatively greater number of errors committed when matching force with the opposite hand in the CR and CC conditions than with the same hand in the IR condition. Younger women with greater estimated iron content committed more errors than their older counterparts with lesser estimated iron content in Cd and Pt. Greater iron content in the BG may contribute to sensorimotor declines in healthy women, and relative iron content quantified by MRI may be a promising biomarker of such.

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Acknowledgments

NR was supported in part by the NIH grant R37 AG011230

DA was supported in part by the Wayne State University Junior Faculty Grant

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wayne State University, 259 Mack Ave, Suite 2305, Detroit, MI, 48201, USA

    Diane E. Adamo

  2. Institute of Gerontology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

    Diane E. Adamo, Ana M. Daugherty & Naftali Raz

  3. Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

    Ana M. Daugherty & Naftali Raz

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  1. Diane E. Adamo
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  2. Ana M. Daugherty
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  3. Naftali Raz
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Correspondence to Diane E. Adamo.

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Adamo, D.E., Daugherty, A.M. & Raz, N. Grasp force matching and brain iron content estimated in vivo in older women. Brain Imaging and Behavior 8, 579–587 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-013-9284-6

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