Network Patterns Associated with Navigation Behaviors Are Altered in Aged Nonhuman Primates

The ability to navigate through space involves complex interactions between multiple brain systems. Although it is clear that spatial navigation is impaired during aging, the networks responsible for these altered behaviors are not well understood. Here, we used a within-subject design and [F-18] FDG-microPET to capture whole-brain activation patterns in four distinct spatial behaviors from young and aged rhesus macaques: constrained space (CAGE), head-restrained passive locomotion (CHAIR), constrained locomotion in space (TREADMILL), and unconstrained locomotion (WALK). The results reveal consistent networks activated by these behavior conditions that were similar across age. For the young animals, however, the coactivity patterns were distinct between conditions, whereas older animals tended to engage the same networks in each condition. The combined observations of less differentiated networks between distinct behaviors and alterations in functional connections between targeted regions in aging suggest changes in network dynamics as one source of age-related deficits in spatial cognition.