Individual functional parcellation revealed compensation of dynamic limbic network organization in healthy ageing

Using group-level functional parcellations and constant-length sliding window analysis, dynamic functional connectivity studies have revealed network-specific impairment and compensation in healthy ageing. However, functional parcellation and dynamic time windows vary across individuals; individual-level ageing-related brain dynamics are uncertain. Here, we performed individual parcellation and individual-length sliding window clustering to characterize ageing-related dynamic network changes. Healthy participants (n = 637, 18–88 years) from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience dataset were included. An individual seven-network parcellation, varied from group-level parcellation, was mapped for each participant. For each network, strong and weak cognitive brain states were revealed by individual-length sliding window clustering and canonical correlation analysis. The results showed negative linear correlations between age and change ratios of sizes in the default mode, frontoparietal, and salience networks and a positive linear correlation between age and change ratios of size in the limbic network (LN). With increasing age, the occurrence and dwell time of strong states showed inverted U-shaped patterns or a linear decreasing pattern in most networks but showed a linear increasing pattern in the LN. Overall, this study reveals a compensative increase in emotional networks (i.e., the LN) and a decline in cognitive and primary sensory networks in healthy ageing. These findings may provide insights into network-specific and individual-level targeting during neuromodulation in ageing and ageing-related diseases.