The organisation of the elderly connectome

We apply present the first systematic investigation of the topological structure of the healthy elderly connectome, applying graph theoretical measures to probabilistic tractography. These technique highlight the clustering of intra-and-inter-module connections (community structure indexed by circles and line colours) identified in the elderly connectome (left hand panel). The elderly connectome is organised around a small constellation of core hub nodes (upper right panel). Network communicability is most sensitive to simulated lesions of hub connections (red connections), suggesting that a pivotal role of hubs persists with healthy ageing.469