Resting-state functional connectivity in anterior cingulate cortex in normal aging

Growing evidence suggests that normal aging is associated with cognitive decline and well-maintained emotional well-being. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is an important brain region involved in emotional and cognitive processing. We investigated resting-state functional connectivity (FC) of two ACC subregions in 30 healthy older adults vs. 33 healthy younger adults, by parcellating into rostral (rACC) and dorsal (dACC) ACC based on clustering of FC profiles. Compared with younger adults, older adults demonstrated greater connection between rACC and anterior insula, suggesting that older adults recruit more proximal dACC brain regions connected with insula to maintain a salient response. Older adults also demonstrated increased FC between rACC and superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, decreased integration between rACC and default mode, and decreased dACC-hippocampal and dACC-thalamic connectivity. These altered FCs reflected rACC and dACC reorganization, and might be related to well emotion regulation and cognitive decline in older adults. Our findings provide further insight into potential functional substrates of emotional and cognitive alterations in the aging brain.