Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40940439›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2025

Increased frontal functional connectivity correlates with structural disconnection in the anterior corpus callosum in healthy older adults.

Hanna Braaß, Nadine Reiter, Winifried Backhaus, Paweł P Wróbel, Fanny Quandt, Robert Schulz, Christian Gerloff, Focko L Higgen

Erratum issuedAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Hanna Braaß *Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany. h.braass@uke.de.
Nadine Reiter *Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Winifried BackhausDepartment of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Paweł P WróbelDepartment of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Fanny QuandtDepartment of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Robert SchulzDepartment of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Christian GerloffDepartment of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Focko L HiggenDepartment of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Cognitive aging is a heterogeneous process characterized by a varied decline in brain performance. While the neurophysiological basis of this decline remains poorly understood, age-related alterations in structural connectivity (SC) and functional connectivity (FC) have been implicated. Understanding the relationship between these changes is crucial for identifying early markers of cognitive impairment. In our previous work, we observed that in healthy older adults, diminished performance in a tactile recognition task was associated with reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) in the anterior corpus callosum (aCC). The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of this age-related SC degeneration on the FC between the connected regions. In the current analysis, we examined resting-state functional MRI data from 29 healthy older adults, who were categorized into two subgroups - high and low performers - based on their performance in a tactile recognition task and a younger control group (N = 20). We conducted a region of interest (ROI) to ROI analysis to evaluate FC between frontal regions connected via the aCC. Subsequently, we compared the FC between the groups and assessed its correlation with FA values in the aCC across all older participants based on a TBSS analysis from our previous work. We found that poorer performance in a tactile recognition task was associated with increased FC between frontal regions. The second main finding was a negative correlation between FA in the aCC and FC between frontal regions. Our findings suggest that structural degradation of the underlying pathways may initially lead to increased FC within the connected regions, possibly as a compensatory mechanism to preserve cognitive function. However, as no direct brain–behavior correlation was assessed, this interpretation remains tentative. The aCC appears to be particularly vulnerable to age-related structural decline, which may underlie functional changes in frontal regions observed with aging.

Indexed as

Corpus CallosumFrontal LobeAgedAgingAnisotropyBrain MappingDiffusion Tensor ImagingFemaleHumansMagnetic Resonance ImagingMaleMiddle AgedCorpus callosumDTIHealthy agingRsfMRITractography

Identifiers

PMID40940439
PMCPMC12432219

What Socratic holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.