Spinal cord structural and functional architecture and its shared organization with the brain across the adult lifespan

Abstract

The spinal cord connects the brain to peripheral systems. Yet its integration with cerebral networks remains a key neuroscience question. Capturing structural and functional central nervous system (CNS) changes throughout the lifespan is essential for characterizing healthy and pathological aging. Leveraging a unique multimodal dataset combining spinal and cerebrospinal imaging, we jointly mapped the spinal cord structural and functional architecture across adulthood. Our results revealed age-related changes across these modalities and identified organizational principles shared with the brain. These changes were most pronounced in the somatosensory pathway, with microstructural decline coupled to shifts in functional connectivity and local spontaneous activity as aging progresses. Extending analyses to the brain uncovered convergent CNS-wide aging mechanisms, including gray matter loss, functional dedifferentiation, and increased spontaneous activity, highlighting shared neural aging trajectories. Together, our findings provide a systems-level view of alterations with age and lay the groundwork for early biomarkers of sensorimotor decline.