Emotional characteristics associate with fronto‐amygdala connectivity in older‐old adults: Results from I‐CONECT

Abstract Background Research into the emotional health of older adults, as it relates to brain network function, lags research into cognitive health, despite the importance of emotional health to quality of life. Here, we examine associations between three summary scores of emotional health from the NIH Toolbox Emotion Battery (NIHTB‐EB) – negative affect, social satisfaction, and psychological well‐being – and their associations with intrinsic brain network functional connectivity within three systems implicated in emotional function – the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SAL), and amygdala‐based connectivity. Method Fifty participants completed resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs‐fMRI; 33 women, 80.7±4.4 years). We used two analytic approaches: Seed‐to‐voxel (amygdala) : We extracted timeseries from bilateral amygdalae for a voxelwise, whole‐brain analysis. Separate analyses were conducted for each NIHTB‐EB summary score. ROI‐to‐ROI (DMN/SAL) : Pairwise correlations were averaged to provide a single measure of within‐network connectivity for each network. ROI‐to‐ROI analyses were calculated in separate regression models using each NIHTB‐EB summary score to predict connectivity within each brain network. NIHTB‐EB outcomes were generated with subscale scores weighted by factor loading. Both sets of analyses included age, sex, site, in‐scanner motion, and cognitive status (unimpaired cognition or mild cognitive impairment). Result Psychological well‐being associated negatively with amygdala connectivity with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC; Fig1; peak T = ‐4.28; MNI xyz: [‐6,24,‐24]; k = 63 voxels). Conversely, negative affect associated positively with amygdala connectivity with vmPFC (Fig2; T = 4.24; [8,22,‐22]; k = 27). NIHTB‐EB summary scores did not associate with DMN or SAL connectivity. Conclusion These results highlight the relevance of fronto‐amygdala connectivity in understanding emotional aging in older‐old adults. Previous research suggests that the inhibition of amygdala activity by frontal regions plays a key role in emotion regulation. In this light, diminished amygdala‐vmPFC connectivity may reflect better emotion regulation, which here associates with higher levels of psychological well‐being and lower levels of negative affect. While research on younger adults has established the relevance of DMN and SAL connectivity to emotional health, this work suggests that these networks may not be as relevant to emotional health in the older‐old population. These results should be interpreted with caution, as they use an uncorrected voxelwise threshold (p<0.001).