Age-specific relationship between the modulation of brain dynamics in response to task demands and bimanual performance.

Overview

1. Neuroplasticity and Movement Control Research Group, Rehabilitation Research Institute (REVAL), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, 3590 Limburg, Belgium
2. Leuven Brain Institute (LBI), KU Leuven, Leuven, 3000 Flemish Brabant, Belgium
3. Medical Imaging Research Center, UZ Leuven, Leuven, 3000 Flemish Brabant, Belgium
4. Movement Control & Neuroplasticity Research Group, Department of Movement Sciences, Group Biomedical Sciences, KU Leuven, Heverlee, 3001 Flemish Brabant, Belgium

Abstract

While prior research has largely focused on mean Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent (BOLD) activation to understand age-related differences in bimanual coordination, BOLD variability - a metric that captures fluctuations in brain activity -, has been overlooked. Hence, the current study examined how age affects BOLD variability, specifically BOLD standard deviation (BOLD SD), and its modulation with task demands during a bimanual task. Twenty-two younger and twenty-three older adults performed three task conditions of increasing complexity while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Older adults exhibited higher BOLD SD in cerebellar lobule VIIIb and greater modulation across task conditions in both sensorimotor and cerebellar regions. Modulation of BOLD variability predicted task performance in an age- and region-dependent manner: in younger adults, reduced modulation in sensorimotor and visuospatial areas correlated with better performance, whereas in older adults, increased modulation in the inferior and superior parietal lobules was linked to higher performance. Across groups, better outcomes were predicted by greater modulation in the middle occipital gyrus but less in the cerebellar Crus I. These findings underscore an age-related shift in the neural dynamics underpinning motor adaptability with aging, pointing to increased BOLD variability modulation as a potential marker of compensatory reorganization in late adulthood.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper links to its data and to no code of its authors: see the Data section.

Tracing map

A tracing map links a paper to the code its authors published: this paper has none, so it has no map.

Data

Datasets cited

• cran.r-project.org/package=cardata, at cran.r-project.org; found in the references

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 1, 30 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 6 authors, 5 keywords, 1 funder, 81 references.

Cite

This paper

Ferreira, S. M., Beeckmans, M., Frieske, J., Meesen, R., Swinnen, S. P., & Cuypers, K. (2026). Age-specific relationship between the modulation of brain dynamics in response to task demands and bimanual performance. Aging, 18(1), 159-189. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206363

Similar papers

The papers with a page that share the most with this one: the tools found in their code, their categories, datasets, cited references and authors, the rarest counting most.

[1] doi:10.18632/aging.204237

Bridging cognition and action: executive functioning mediates the relationship between white matter fiber density and complex motor abilities in older adults.

Journal: Aging

In common: cognitive, 14 references

[2] doi:10.1038/s41467-026-68700-0 [code]

The biological role of local and global fMRI BOLD signal variability in multiscale human brain organization.

Journal: Nature communications

In common: fMRI, cognitive, 11 references

[3] doi:10.1093/cercor/bhaf219 [code]

Neural variability in the default mode network compresses with increasing belief precision during Bayesian inference.

Journal: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)

In common: fMRI, cognitive, 9 references

[4] doi:10.1162/netn_a_00347

Brain signal variability and executive functions across the life span.

Journal: Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)

In common: fMRI, cognitive, 9 references

[5] doi:10.1002/hbm.70496 [code]

Transdiagnostic Profiles of BOLD Signal Variability in Autism and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: Associations With Cognition and Functioning.

Journal: Human brain mapping

In common: fMRI, cognitive, 8 references

[6] doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106794

White matter and neurochemical mechanisms underlying age-related differences in motor processing speed.

Journal: iScience

In common: 5 references, author Koen Cuypers

[7] doi:10.1038/s42003-025-08448-3 [code]

Infra-slow scale-free dynamics modulate the connection of neural and behavioral variability during attention.

Journal: Communications biology

In common: fMRI, cognitive, 8 references

[8] doi:10.1177/0271678x241262583

The relative brain signal variability increases in the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease but not in schizophrenia.

Journal: Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism

In common: fMRI, 8 references

[9] doi:10.7554/elife.83865 [code]

Modulation of brain signal variability in visual cortex reflects aging, GABA, and behavior.

Journal: eLife

In common: 8 references

[10] doi:10.1002/hbm.26778

Reliability of variability and complexity measures for task and task-free BOLD fMRI.

Journal: Human brain mapping

In common: fMRI, 8 references

Contribute

The authors of this paper can claim it, correct its record and validate its tracing map, and the maintainers of its code (its owner, or a public member of its organization) correct what it says of their repository; anyone signed in can ask for its removal. Every request goes to OSCR's own machine, which answers it; your account page follows them.

Request its removal

To ask OSCR to remove this record, the copies of its authors' scripts or its tracing map, use the removal request page: signed in, you say who you are, what to remove and why, then review and confirm the request. Published rules decide every request (how).

Discussion: code errors and mismatches between the code and the paper about this paper and its code, from readers and its authors, beside the paper and its tracing map.

Reproductions: reports from readers who ran the authors' code and did not get the paper's result, what they ran, with which environment, commit and data.

Activity: what happens around this paper: new versions of its record, its map's validation, discussions and reproductions. It opens with sign-in.