Metastability in Senescence

Shruti Naik, Arpan Banerjee, Raju S. Bapi, Gustavo Deco, Dipanjan Roy

Research output: Contribution to journalReview ArticleResearchpeer-review

61 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The brain during healthy aging exhibits gradual deterioration of structure but maintains a high level of cognitive ability. These structural changes are often accompanied by reorganization of functional brain networks. Existing neurocognitive theories of aging have argued that such changes are either beneficial or detrimental. Despite numerous empirical investigations, the field lacks a coherent account of the dynamic processes that occur over our lifespan. Taking advantage of the recent developments in whole-brain computational modeling approaches, we hypothesize that the continuous process of aging can be explained by the concepts of metastability − a theoretical framework that gives a systematic account of the variability of the brain. This hypothesis can bridge the gap between existing theories and the empirical findings on age-related changes.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)509-521
Number of pages13
JournalTrends in Cognitive Sciences
Volume21
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2017

Keywords

  • healthy aging
  • metastability
  • whole-brain computational modeling

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