Inhibitory temporo-parietal effective connectivity is associated with explicit memory performance in older adults

Björn H Schott; Joram Soch; Jasmin M Kizilirmak; Hartmut Schütze; Anne Assmann; Anne Maass; Gabriel Ziegler; Magdalena Sauvage; Anni Richter

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107765

Inhibitory temporo-parietal effective connectivity is associated with explicit memory performance in older adults

iScience. 2023 Aug 29;26(10):107765. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107765. eCollection 2023 Oct 20.

Authors

Björn H Schott^{1

2

3

4}, Joram Soch^{1

5}, Jasmin M Kizilirmak^{1

6}, Hartmut Schütze^{7

8}, Anne Assmann^{7

8}, Anne Maass⁷, Gabriel Ziegler^{7

8}, Magdalena Sauvage², Anni Richter^{2

9

10}

Affiliations

¹ German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Göttingen, Germany.
² Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN), Magdeburg, Germany.
³ Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences (CBBS), Magdeburg, Germany.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
⁵ Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (BCCN), Berlin, Germany.
⁶ Neurodidactics and NeuroLab, Institute for Psychology, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany.
⁷ German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Magdeburg, Germany.
⁸ Otto von Guericke University, Medical Faculty, Magdeburg, Germany.
⁹ German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), Magdeburg, Germany.
¹⁰ Center for Intervention and Research on adaptive and Maladaptive Brain Circuits Underlying Mental Health (C-I-R-C) Jena-Magdeburg-Halle, Magdeburg, Germany.

Abstract

Successful explicit memory encoding is associated with inferior temporal activations and medial parietal deactivations, which are attenuated in aging. Here we used dynamic causal modeling (DCM) of functional magnetic resonance imaging data to elucidate effective connectivity patterns between hippocampus, parahippocampal place area (PPA), and precuneus during encoding of novel visual scenes. In 117 young adults, DCM revealed pronounced activating input from the PPA to the hippocampus and inhibitory connectivity from the PPA to the precuneus during novelty processing, with both being enhanced during successful encoding. This pattern could be replicated in two cohorts (N = 141 and 148) of young and older adults. In both cohorts, older adults selectively exhibited attenuated inhibitory PPA-precuneus connectivity, which correlated negatively with memory performance. Our results provide insight into the network dynamics underlying explicit memory encoding and suggest that age-related differences in memory-related network activity are, at least partly, attributable to altered temporo-parietal neocortical connectivity.

Keywords: Behavioral neuroscience; Cognitive neuroscience; Neuroscience; Techniques in neuroscience.