Older adults benefit from more widespread brain network integration during working memory

“…2018 ). This observation is consistent with a recent study in which it was reported that older adults were recruiting more distributed cortical resources as task demands increased ( Crowell et al. 2020 ).…”

“…As the ability to segregate into specialized nodes corresponds to the ability to execute cognitive tasks (106)(107)(108), it is of extreme interest to observe how both aging and disease aging both have decreased levels of network segregation, and that the disease effect is more profound in decreasing the network's level of segregation and integration. Similar results have been observed in human studies as well, where heightened disease pathology is associated with lower levels of functional segregation (60,101,133). The same trend for network integration was also observed in our results, with network efficiency decreasing in both disease and healthy aging, and that the fully symptomatic timepoint resulted in a significant difference in network efficiency.…”

“…This suggests that the shift may not be isolated to individual systems but represents a whole-brain phenomenon. Similar to the observation that brain-wide integration increases as the disease progresses or during task demands in aging (Fathian et al 2022;Crowell et al 2020), AD appears to drive functional networks toward a more random architecture. Consequently, the increase in LF likely reflects a complex, dynamic reorganization process where compensatory adaptations are ultimately constrained by the underlying network architecture and disease progression.…”

“… 2022 ; Crowell et al. 2020 ), AD appears to drive functional networks toward a more random architecture. Consequently, the increase in LF likely reflects a complex, dynamic reorganization process where compensatory adaptations are ultimately constrained by the underlying network architecture and disease progression.…”