Cognitive flexibility and brain network energy in healthy aging: An allostatic perspective from the SENECA model.

Abstract

Understanding how the older adult brain sustains cognitive flexibility remains a central question in aging research. Here, we analyzed resting-state fMRI data from the population-based CamCAN database (N = 628; age 18-88) and applied structural balance theory to measure functional network energy, a graph-theoretical proxy of network flexibility. In line with the SENECA model, our findings highlight midlife as a critical transition period: network energy is redistributed along the sensory-transmodal hierarchy, shifting from higher-level networks (DMN-FPN) to lower-level networks (SMN, CON, Auditory, Visual, Language). This reorganization (i) helps preserve the global wiring economy across the lifespan, hinting at an allostatic mechanism (i.e., stability through change) regulated by anti-correlated dynamics; and (ii) may support embodied semantic strategies in older adulthood, leveraging more predictive processing to sustain cognitive flexibility at lower costs. Taken together, our study reframes healthy neurocognitive aging as an allostatic process and provides a reference for extending the SENECA model to metabolism and neuropathology.