Fig. 5.

Descriptive ranking of variable importance (VI) for the prediction of cognitive and motor skills, as determined by random forest regression. Only networks changing integrity with age were included in the model. In addition, demographical variables (education, age, and sex), age-related brain abnormalities (WMH score, lacunes), normalized global brain volumes (nGBV), and hypertension were included. Spheres and vertical lines indicate VI mean and 95% confidence interval. Only if the confidence interval did not overlap with zero, a variable was considered to have a significant contribution in predicting the performance (filled dot). Education and age showed the highest variable importance in all domains. Additional association with the domains were found for the secondary somatosensory network (h), the temporal network (e), the sensorimotor network (j), the limbic network (d), the fronto-parietal network (g), a cerebellar network (v), the fronto-occipital network (i), and the cuneal network (a)