Introduction

Numerous structural studies have already reported volumetric reduction in cerebellum with aging. However, there are still limited studies particularly focusing on analysis of the cerebellar resting state FC in old adults. Even so, the least related studies were unable to include some important cerebellar lobules due to limited cerebellum segmentation methods.

Objective

The purpose of this study is to explore cognitive function in relation to cerebellar lobular morphometry and cortico-cerebellar connectivity changes in old adults' lifespan by incorporating previously undetected cerebellar lobules.

Methods

This study includes a sample of 264 old adults subdivided into five cognitively normal age groups (G1 through G5). Cerebellum Segmentation (CERES) software was used to obtain morphometric measures and brain masks of all the 24 cerebellar lobules. We then defined individual lobules as seed regions and mapped the whole-brain to get functional connectivity maps. To analyze age group differences in cortico-cerebellar connectivity and cerebellar lobular volume, we used one way ANOVA and post hoc analysis was performed for multiple comparisons using Bonferroni method.

Results

Our results report cerebellar lobular volumetric reduction, disrupted intra-cerebellar connectivity and significant differences in cortico-cerebellar resting state FC across age groups. In addition, our results show that disrupted FC between left Crus-II and right ACC relates to well emotion regulation and cognitive decline and is associated with poor performance on TMT-B and logical memory tests in older adults.

Conclusion

Overall, our findings confirm that as humans get older and older, the cerebellar lobular volumes as well as the cortico-cerebellar functional connectivity are affected and hence reduces cognition.

中文翻译：

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认知功能和小脑形态变化与老年人的小脑内和小脑-小脑功能连接异常有关。

介绍

许多结构研究已经报道小脑的体积随着衰老而减少。然而，仍然有有限的研究，特别是集中在老年人小脑静息状态FC的分析上。即使这样，由于小脑分割方法的局限性，最不相关的研究仍无法包括一些重要的小脑小叶。

目的

这项研究的目的是通过纳入以前未检测到的小脑小叶，探讨与老年人寿命相关的小脑小叶形态测量和皮质-小脑连通性变化的认知功能。

方法

这项研究包括264个老年人的样本，这些老年人被分为五个认知正常年龄组（G1至G5）。小脑分割（CERES）软件用于获得所有24个小脑小叶的形态测量值和脑罩。然后，我们将单个小叶定义为种子区域，并映射全脑以获取功能连接图。为了分析皮质小脑连接性和小脑小叶体积的年龄组差异，我们使用了一种方差分析，并使用Bonferroni方法进行事后分析进行多次比较。

结果

我们的研究结果报告了小脑小叶体积减少，小脑内连通性中断以及不同年龄组的小脑静息状态FC的显着差异。此外，我们的结果表明，左Crus-II和右ACC之间的FC破坏与良好的情绪调节和认知下降有关，并且与老年人的TMT-B和逻辑记忆测试表现不佳有关。

结论

总体而言，我们的研究结果证实，随着人类年龄的增长，小脑小叶体积以及皮质-小脑功能连接性均受到影响，从而降低了认知能力。