ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Neurocognitive Aging and Behavior
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1593868
Efficiency of Structural Brain Networks Mediates Age-Associated Differences in Executive Functioning in Older Adults
Provisionally accepted
Geraldine Rodríguez-Nieto1,2*
Caroline Seer2
Hamed Zivari Adab1,2Antonio Jiménez-Marín3Sima Chalavi2Amirhossein Rasooli2
Jesus M Cortes3Stefan Sunaert2Stephan P Swinnen2*- 1KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- 2Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- 3Biobizkaia Health Research Institute, Barakaldo, Spain
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Older age is associated with alterations in executive functioning (EF). Age-related alterations in the integrity of structural brain networks may contribute to EF decline, with potential consequences for independent living. Graph theory provides powerful metrics to examine the brain's structural connectome, but few studies have investigated the relationship of EF and structural brain networks, as described by graph-theoretical measures, in older adults. We aimed to investigate the mediatory role of network characteristics for the relationship between age and EF in older adults. Eighty-four older adults completed a battery of EF tasks to allow for the extraction of a latent Common-EF factor. White-matter tractograms were generated from diffusion neuroimaging using anatomically-constrained tractography (ACT) and sphericaldeconvolution informed filtering of tractograms (SIFT2). From the resulting networks, global efficiency (reflecting integration) as well as local efficiency (reflecting segregation) were calculated. Older age was associated with worse EF and decreased global and local efficiency.Both global and local efficiency were positively correlated with EF. Local efficiency mediated the negative correlation of age and EF, whereas no such relationship was found for global efficiency. Further regional efficiency analyses identified the nodes that contributed to the mediation effect of local efficiency. These results shed light on the shared variability among the integrity of structural brain networks and EF at older age. A causal role of a reduced segregation in structural brain networks to support EF in older adults remains to be determined but would bear promising potential for preserving EF during aging.
Keywords: Aging, executive functions, structural connectivity, brain networks, graph theory, DWI, Efficiency, segregation
Received: 14 Mar 2025; Accepted: 13 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rodríguez-Nieto, Seer, Adab, Jiménez-Marín, Chalavi, Rasooli, Cortes, Sunaert and Swinnen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Geraldine Rodríguez-Nieto, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Stephan P Swinnen, Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, 3000, Belgium
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