Biology subjects

Gooijers, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Gooijers, J..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Aging is associated with uniform structural decline across cerebellar regions while preserving topological organization and showing no relation with sensorimotor function

Aging affects cerebellar structure, yet the regional specificity of this decline and its relationship to sensorimotor functions remain unclear. In this study, we quantified age-related cerebellar gray matter differences in 50 young and 80 older adults using both anatomically defined cerebellar parcellations and a functionally defined cerebellar atlas. Across both anatomical and functional parcellations, older adults showed robust reductions in gray matter volume relative to young adults. This age-related gray matter vulnerability was region-specific as age differences varied significantly across regions: both the current dataset and the additionally used Cam-CAN dataset demonstrated a larger negative effect of age in the posterior than the anterior lobe, and a smaller difference in the action domains than in the other functional domains . Structural covariance analyses revealed that correlations between cerebellar regions were determined primarily by spatial proximity and, to a lesser extent, by medial-ateral (vermis-hemisphere) organization or functional similarity. Importantly, the topological organization of the cerebellum did not differ across age groups, indicating preserved structural patterns despite widespread gray matter loss. Finally, despite substantial interindividual variability in behavioral, regional cerebellar gray matter volumes, whether anatomically or functionally defined, did not predict inter-individual variability for any of our eight cerebellum-dependent outcomes. This absence of structure-function relationship suggests that behavioral performance is maintained through compensatory mechanisms or microstructural features not captured by regional gray matter volume. Together, the results suggest heterogeneous age-related cerebellar degeneration alongside preserved topological organization and no measurable impact on cerebellar sensorimotor function, supporting the notion of a robust cerebellar reserve throughout healthy aging.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Age-related differences in the cortical motor network during uni-manual and bimanual coordination - an EEG study

Aging is accompanied by various neurophysiological changes that may affect cognitive and motor function. Compared to younger adults, motor performance in older adults engages more brain regions and exhibits elevated neural activity in the motor-related alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (15-30 Hz) frequency bands of electro-encephalography (EEG) signals. To what extent these functional changes correlate with the quality of motor performance is underexplored. We recorded EEG in 19 young and 19 older adults during unimanual and bimanual visuomotor tasks with different degrees of difficulty. Older participants showed a lower quality of performance than younger adults, especially during asymmetric bimanual tasks. We analyzed source-localized activity in bilateral parietal and (pre-)motor areas to investigate, especially, the hypothesized pivotal role of left premotor cortex (PMCL) activity within the motor network during motor performance. In PMCL, beta activity was indeed significantly affected by age during bimanual performance, while alpha activity was altered in the bilateral (pre-)cuneus. When predicting error of performance via alpha and beta modulations, we found significant associations in bilateral M1 and (pre-)cuneusR during unimanual performance, while in bimanual performance, PMCL and (pre-)cuneusL were also included in the significant association. Our results confirm the importance of PMCL and (pre-)cuneusL for the performance of bimanual tasks, especially when the tasks are challenging. The age-related differences in alpha power in bilateral (pre-)cuneus and their associations with motor performance suggest that altered visuomotor integration has an important contribution to the reduction of the quality of motor performance in older adults.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Preserved cerebellar functions despite structural degeneration in older adults

Aging is frequently perceived negatively due to its association with the decline of various brain and bodily functions. While it is evident that motor abilities deteriorate with age, it is incorrect to assume that all aspects of movement execution are equally affected. The cerebellum, a brain region that is closely involved in motor control among other functions, undergoes clear structural changes with aging. While several studies suggest that cerebellar degeneration causes age-related motor control deficits, other studies suggest that the cerebellum might act as a motor reserve and compensate for its structural degeneration, leaving cerebellar motor function intact despite cerebellar degeneration. The present study aims at thoroughly investigating the impact of age on cerebellar function across an array of tasks and domains. We investigated cerebellar motor and cognitive functions across the lifespan by examining 50 young adults (20-35 years), 80 older adults (55-70 years), and 30 older-old adults (>80 years). Participants completed a test battery comprising seven motor control tasks and one cognitive task, each designed to probe cerebellar function through different paradigms. This multi-task approach allowed for a comprehensive evaluation of performance patterns, providing a balanced perspective on cerebellar function across the different age groups. In addition, we analyzed outcomes from the same tasks that, while related to movement, were not specifically linked to cerebellar function. Structural magnetic resonance imaging was also conducted to assess whether cerebellar atrophy was present in the older and older-old groups compared to the young. Our results revealed that, despite age-related cerebellar degeneration, cerebellar functions in older adults remained intact compared to young adults, even in adults above 80 years old. In contrast, the sensorimotor measures that were not directly linked to cerebellar function exhibited a clear pattern of decline in older adults, and were further deteriorated in the older-old adults compared to the older adults. These findings indicate that cerebellar motor control functions remain largely preserved with age, providing compelling evidence that the cerebellum possesses a remarkable degree of functional resilience and redundancy. This suggests that cerebellar circuits may be uniquely equipped to preserve function despite structural degeneration.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Multimodal lesion network mapping to predict sensorimotor behavior in stroke patients

Lesion network mapping (LNM) has proved to be a successful technique to map symptoms to brain networks after acquired brain injury. Beyond the characteristics of a lesion, such as its etiology, size or location, LNM has shown that common symptoms in patients after injury may reflect the effects of their lesions on the same circuits, thereby linking symptoms to specific brain networks. Here, we extend LNM to its multimodal form, using a combination of functional and structural connectivity maps drawn from data from 1000 healthy participants in the Human Connectome Project. We applied the multimodal LNM to a cohort of 54 stroke patients with the aim of predicting sensorimotor behavior, as assessed through a combination of motor and sensory tests. Test scores were predicted using a Canonical Correlation Analysis with multimodal brain maps as independent variables, and cross-validation strategies were employed to overcome overfitting. The results obtained led us to draw three conclusions. First, the multimodal analysis reveals how functional connectivity maps contribute more than structural connectivity maps in the optimal prediction of sensorimotor behavior. Second, the maximal association solution between the behavioral outcome and multimodal lesion connectivity maps suggests an equal contribution of sensory and motor coefficients, in contrast to the unimodal analyses where the sensory contribution dominates in both structural and functional maps. Finally, when looking at each modality individually, the performance of the structural connectivity maps strongly depends on whether sensorimotor performance was corrected for lesion size, thereby eliminating the effect of larger lesions that produce more severe sensorimotor dysfunction. By contrast, the maps of functional connectivity performed similarly irrespective of any correction for lesion size. Overall, these results support the extension of LNM to its multimodal form, highlighting the synergistic and additive nature of different types of imaging modalities, and the influence of their corresponding brain networks on behavioral performance after acquired brain injury.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Representational similarity scores of digits in the sensorimotor cortex are associated with behavioral performance

Previous studies aimed to unravel a digit-specific somatotopic organization in the primary sensorimotor (SM1) cortex. It is, however, yet to be determined whether such digit somatotopy is associated with motor performance (i.e., effector selection) and digit enslaving (unintentional co-contraction of fingers) during different types of motor tasks. Here, we adopted multivariate representational similarity analysis, applied to high-field (7T) MRI data, to explore digit activation patterns in response to online finger tapping. Sixteen young adults (7 males, mean age: 24.4 years) underwent MRI, and additionally performed an offline choice reaction time task (CRTT) to assess effector selection. During both the finger tapping task (FTT) and the CRTT, force sensor data of all digits were acquired. This allowed us to assess digit enslaving (obtained from CRTT & FTT), as well as digit interference (i.e., erroneous effector selection; obtained from CRTT) and determine the correlation between these variables and digit representational similarity scores of SM1. Digit enslaving during finger tapping was associated with contralateral SM1 representational similarity scores of both hands. During the CRTT, digit enslaving of the right hand only was associated with representational similarity scores of left SM1. Additionally, right hand digit interference was associated with representational similarity scores of left S1. In conclusion, we demonstrate a cortical origin of digit enslaving, and uniquely reveal that effector selection performance is predicted by digit representations in the somatosensory cortex.

neuroscience↗