Association of the frailty index with functional brain connectivity in the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA)

Background Frailty, expressed as accumulation of health deficits in older adults, could contribute to the risk cognitive decline. We cross-sectionally studied brain connectivity signatures frailty The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Method included participants from Wave 3 TILDA who underwent resting-state functional MRI. Connectivity maps were based Shen’s parcellation and connectome-based predictive modeling was used find associations between measured by Frailty Index (FI) (Table 1). On each iteration a 10-fold cross-validation training folds utilized perform partial Spearman correlations (adjusted for age, sex, mean framewise displacement) connection FI scores. Connections with p<0.001 selected. Network strength computed summing across all connections selected linear model built using network predict score. After 10 are complete performance R values predicted true This process repeated 1000 times (with random splits) metrics obtained. A permutation test employed which above procedure times, scores shuffled time. Significance calculated number permutations that equal or greater than proper score, divided 1000. Result 347 (mean age 67.7 (SD 7.3) 51.6% men). obtained positively correlated (“frailty network”) (R = 0.169, p 0.006) another negatively (“robustness -0.193, 0.006); depicted Figure 1. “frailty network” more widespread showed higher right occipital both prefrontal cortices, subcortical left temporal cortex, whereas “robustness exhibited parietal bilateral cortices. Conclusion Functional be influenced frailty. Further research should study relationship different tools establish how patterns deficit affect lifespan.