Abstract
Social networks are known to protect cognitive function in old age. For the first time, this study examines how social network size and social network embeddedness measured by k-core score are associated with functional connectivity in the brain using the complete social network of an entire village. According to the results, social network size has both positive and negative associations with functional connectivity; showing no meaningful pattern relative to distance among brain regions. However, older adults deeply embedded in the complete network tend to maintain functional connectivity between long-distance regions even after controlling for other covariates such as age, gender, education, and Mini-Mental State Examination score. Network Based Statistics (NBS) also revealed strong and consistent evidence that social network embeddedness has component-level associations with functional connectivity among brain regions, especially between inferior prefrontal and occipital/parietal lobes.
Highlights
The association between social networks and cognitive health has been investigated in epidemiology studies
Functional connectivity of the brain is often illustrated as a small world network, where i) proximate brain regions are functionally clustered, and ii) inter-cluster connectivity between several regions of interest (ROIs) enables those clusters to efficiently synchronize[18]
Aging population studies demonstrate that old age is correlated with a decrease in long-distance connectivity in default mode networks and attention networks[7], resulting in less efficient brain function[22] with more locally-integrated but globally-segregated functional networks[8]
Summary
The association between social networks and cognitive health has been investigated in epidemiology studies. While recent studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed that the main cause of cognitive impairment in later life results from the destruction in functional connectivity among brain regions of interest (ROIs)[7, 8], Marques and colleagues reported that higher levels of education provide more efficient brain functional networks and alleviate the negative effects of aging[9]. According to their analyses, years of education are positively associated with functional connectivity among distant brain ROIs, especially between anterior and posterior regions, which could help the brain to efficiently mobilize its segregated regions. Considering both the results from resting-state fMRI scan on 64 healthy older adults without brain pathology and social network data, we investigated how brain functional connectivity is associated with social network size and embeddedness within the township
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