Trajectory of rich club properties in structural brain networks

Many organizational principles of structural brain networks are established before birth and undergo considerable developmental changes afterwards. These include the topologically central hub regions and a densely connected rich club. While several studies have mapped developmental trajectories of brain connectivity and brain network organization across childhood and adolescence, comparatively little is known about subsequent development over the course of the lifespan. Here, we present a cross-sectional analysis of structural brain network development in N = 8,066 participants aged 5 to 80 years. Across all brain regions, structural connectivity strength followed an ‘inverted-U’-shaped trajectory with vertex in the early 30s. Connectivity strength of hub regions showed a similar trajectory and the identity of hub regions remained stable across all age groups. While connectivity strength declined with advancing age, the organization of hub regions into a rich club did not only remain intact but became more pronounced, presumingly through a selected sparing of relevant connections from age-related connectivity loss. The stability of rich club organization in the face of overall age-related decline is consistent with a “first come, last served” model of neurodevelopment, where the first principles to develop are the last to decline with age. Rich club organization has been shown to be highly beneficial for communicability and higher cognition. A resilient rich club might thus be protective of a functional loss in late adulthood and represent a neural reserve to sustain cognitive functioning in the aging brain.