1. WHITE MATTER INTEGRITY OF THE
CINGULUM BUNDLE IN HEALTHY AGING
POSTER
76
Swisher TM (1), Michalowski AZ (1), Kubicki M (1,2), Shenton ME (1,2,3), Waldinger RJ (4)
(1) Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; (2) Clinical Neuroscience Division, Laboratory of Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry,
Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Brockton Division, Brockton, MA; (3) Surgical Planning Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; (4) Laboratory of
Adult Development, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
 Older adults preferentially attend to and recall information with positive
emotional valence
• an octogenarian is more likely to easily remember a situation
with positive emotions associated with it
 Socioemotional Selectivity Theory posits that this is a motivated form of
emotion regulation requiring intact executive functioning
 The cingulum bundle is a primary limbic tract associated with executive
functioning, specifically attentional regulation
 We hypothesized that greater white matter integrity in the cingulum – as
indicated by higher fractional anisotropy (FA) values – would be correlated
with preferential memory for positively-valenced images
BACKGROUND
 Image Acquisition: Diffusion weighted images were acquired from 35
healthy adults (mean age = 79) on a 3-Tesla GE Echospeed Scanner
 Emotional Memory Bias Test: Subjects viewed 60 emotionally positive,
60 emotionally negative, and 60 emotionally neutral pictures for 3 sec onds
each (see Figure 1); 30 minutes later, they performed a surprise recognition
memory task, in which they were asked to discriminate between images
they had been shown previously and those that were new
 Manual ROI Definition: Manual ROIs were drawn for every case. The
cingulum is traced with 2 distinct ROIs; the first is drawn on 3 sequential
coronal slices where the anterior commissure is most visible, and the
second is drawn on 2 consecutive coronal slices anterior to and posterior to
the splenium of the corpus callosum (see Figure 2)
 Diffusion Tractography: Using the above ROIs, 1-tensor streamline
tractography was performed in Slicer 3, adding exclusion ROIs as needed
METHODS
Figure 1: Emotionally Valenced Images Figure 2: Cingulum Tractography
3x ROI 1 2x ROI 2
2x ROI 2
 We found a significant positive correlation
between total FA in the cingulum and preferential
memory for positive images (r = 0.369, p < 0.03)
 We also found a lateralized positive correlation
between FA in the right cingulum and preferential
memory for positive images (r = 0.400, p < 0.02)
RESULTS
 Our results confirm our hypothesis that higher FA values in the cingulum are associated with
preferential memory for positively-valenced visual images
 This is consistent with the hypothesis that greater integrity of white matter tracts subserving
executive functioning is associated with positive memory bias, which in turn has been associated with
greater emotional well-being in the elderly
DISCUSSION
Figure 3: Graphical Data
300
350
400
450
500
550
-0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3
FAx1000
Positive vs Negative Image Bias (Pos-Neg)
Total FA vs Pos-Neg
p < 0.03
r = 0.369
300
350
400
450
500
550
-0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3
FAx1000
Positive vs Negative Image Bias (Pos-Neg)
Right FA vs Pos-Neg
p < 0.02
r = 0.400