Health Disparities Among Sexual and Gender Minority People Living With Epilepsy: A Cross-Sectional Analysis.

Background And Objectives: Visibility of sexual and gender minority (SGM) people has been steadily increasing over the recent years; however, little is known about the distinct seizure and mental health characteristics among SGM people with epilepsy. In this study, we describe these characteristics among SGM subgroups.

Methods: Data on demographics, seizure metrics, mental health, and quality of life were collected using patient-reported questionnaires gathered at first epilepsy clinic visits as part of routine clinical care from January 2019 to September 2023 at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Assessing how frailty and healthcare delays mediate the association between sexual and gender minority status and healthcare utilization in the All of Us Research Program.

Objectives: To understand how frailty and healthcare delays differentially mediate the association between sexual and gender minority older adults (OSGM) status and healthcare utilization.

Materials And Methods: Data from the All of Us Research Program participants ≥50 years old were analyzed using marginal structural modelling to assess if frailty or healthcare delays mediated OSGM status and healthcare utilization. OSGM status, healthcare delays, and frailty were assessed using survey data.

Frailty Among Sexual and Gender Minority Older Adults: The All of Us Database.

Background: Despite known disparities in health status among older sexual and gender minority adults (OSGM), the prevalence of frailty is unknown. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a deficit-accumulation frailty index (AoU-FI) for the All of Us database to describe and compare frailty between OSGM and non-OSGM participants.

Methods: Developed using a standardized approach, the AoU-FI consists of 33 deficits from baseline survey responses of adults aged 50+.

Brain Network Modularity Predicts Exercise-Related Executive Function Gains in Older Adults.

Recent work suggests that the brain can be conceptualized as a network comprised of groups of sub-networks or modules. The extent of segregation between modules can be quantified with a modularity metric, where networks with high modularity have dense connections within modules and sparser connections between modules. Previous work has shown that higher modularity predicts greater improvements after cognitive training in patients with traumatic brain injury and in healthy older and young adults.

Magnetic susceptibility-induced echo-time shifts: Is there a bias in age-related fMRI studies?

Purpose: To evaluate the potential for bias in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) aging studies resulting from age-related differences in magnetic field distributions that can impact echo time and functional contrast.

Materials And Methods: Magnetic field maps were taken on 31 younger adults (age: 22 ± 2.9 years) and 46 older adults (age: 66 ± 4.

Fitness, but not physical activity, is related to functional integrity of brain networks associated with aging.

Greater physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with reduced age-related cognitive decline and lower risk for dementia. However, significant gaps remain in the understanding of how physical activity and fitness protect the brain from adverse effects of brain aging. The primary goal of the current study was to empirically evaluate the independent relationships between physical activity and fitness with functional brain health among healthy older adults, as measured by the functional connectivity of cognitively and clinically relevant resting state networks.

Brain activation during dual-task processing is associated with cardiorespiratory fitness and performance in older adults.

Higher cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with better cognitive performance and enhanced brain activation. Yet, the extent to which cardiorespiratory fitness-related brain activation is associated with better cognitive performance is not well understood. In this cross-sectional study, we examined whether the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and executive function was mediated by greater prefrontal cortex activation in healthy older adults.

Physical Activity Is Linked to Greater Moment-To-Moment Variability in Spontaneous Brain Activity in Older Adults.

Higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and physical activity (PA) in old age are associated with greater brain structural and functional integrity, and higher cognitive functioning. However, it is not known how different aspects of lifestyle such as sedentariness, light PA (LI-PA), or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MV-PA) relate to neural activity in aging. In addition, it is not known whether the effects of PA on brain function differ or overlap with those of CRF.

White matter integrity supports BOLD signal variability and cognitive performance in the aging human brain.

Decline in cognitive performance in old age is linked to both suboptimal neural processing in grey matter (GM) and reduced integrity of white matter (WM), but the whole-brain structure-function-cognition associations remain poorly understood. Here we apply a novel measure of GM processing-moment-to-moment variability in the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal (SDBOLD)-to study the associations between GM function during resting state, performance on four main cognitive domains (i.e.

Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are beneficial for white matter in low-fit older adults.

Physical activity (PA) and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) are associated with better cognitive function in late life, but the neural correlates for these relationships are unclear. To study these correlates, we examined the association of both PA and CRF with measures of white matter (WM) integrity in 88 healthy low-fit adults (age 60-78). Using accelerometry, we objectively measured sedentary behavior, light PA, and moderate to vigorous PA (MV-PA) over a week.

Aging brain from a network science perspective: something to be positive about?

To better understand age differences in brain function and behavior, the current study applied network science to model functional interactions between brain regions. We observed a shift in network topology whereby for older adults subcortical and cerebellar structures overlapping with the Salience network had more connectivity to the rest of the brain, coupled with fragmentation of large-scale cortical networks such as the Default and Fronto-Parietal networks. Additionally, greater integration of the dorsal medial thalamus and red nucleus in the Salience network was associated with greater satisfaction with life for older adults, which is consistent with theoretical predictions of age-related increases in emotion regulation that are thought to help maintain well-being and life satisfaction in late adulthood.