加齢と脳の脆弱性に関連する領域を特定(Getting a grip on aging: Study pinpoints brain region tied to frailty)

2026-01-14

2026-01-13 カリフォルニア大学リバーサイド校(UCR)

University of California, Riversideの研究チームは、加齢に伴う筋力低下を評価する新たな指標として「握力」が、全身の健康状態や老化の進行を鋭敏に反映することを明らかにした。研究では、筋肉・神経・代謝の相互作用に着目し、握力の低下が単なる筋萎縮だけでなく、神経制御の変化や細胞レベルの老化プロセスと深く関係していることを示した。特に、握力は心血管疾患、認知機能低下、死亡リスクとも相関することが知られており、簡便で非侵襲的な健康指標として有用性が高い。本研究は、加齢研究において局所的な筋力測定が、全身老化の理解や早期介入戦略の設計に重要な手がかりを与えることを示しており、健康寿命延伸に向けた基礎的知見を提供している。

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コネクトームに基づく握力予測モデル:身体的虚弱性のマーカー
Connectome-based predictive modeling of grip strength: a marker of physical frailty

Amin Ghaffari,Majd Abouzaki,Yasmine Romero,Andrew Sun,Aaron Seitz,Jason Langley,lana J. Bennett,Xiaoping Hu
Frontiers in Neuroscience Published:04 December 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2025.1697908

Introduction: Frailty is characterized by a persistent and progressive decline in functional capacity, leading to increased vulnerability to stressors and a heightened risk of adverse health outcomes, both physically and mentally. Despite frailty’s prevalence in older adults, there is limited research on its neural substrates.

Methods: In this study, we used connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) to find a linear relationship between task-based connectomes taken from tasks that involved similar handgrip manipulations and a separate measure of physical frailty: the maximum grip strength in older adults.

Results: We observed that the task-based connectomes were able to explain individual differences in grip strength, with the Subcortical and Cerebellum network, particularly the caudate nucleus functional connectivity, being the strongest predictor.

Discussion: These findings demonstrate that task-based functional connectomes can serve as personalized markers for predicting individual behavioral measures, such as handgrip strength, and highlight the role of the caudate nucleus in physical frailty.