Age related preservation and loss in optimized brain SPECT

Abstract

Optimized processing has revealed spatial patterns for age related preservation and losses in brain SPECT that indicate their origin is primarily structural. Correction for structural effects in optimized SPECT is needed to confirm whether any regional ageing effects derive from changes in rCBF.

Influences of Age and Length of Education on rCBF-SPECT in Healthy Elderly: Diagnostic Implications for Dementia

“…The regions are partially centred close to sulci, cisterns or interhemispheric space, and there was an overlap in both the group and correlation analysis. Similar findings have previously been reported [16,20,51] although these studies have a younger age range of included subjects and several of them did not include subjects over 65 years of age. The pattern of a low uptake in interlobar interhemispheric space was more pronounced at a lower threshold of significance, not presented here, where the uptake differences also showed a more symmetric distribution.…”

“…A lower rCBF is reported in the cerebellum [16], left anterior temporal [16], orbitofrontal cortex [16], right insula, middle temporal gyrus, and medial frontal lobe [24]. On the other hand there are also recent studies reporting no gender based differences [20].…”

“…Another suggested theory is that age-related preservation in white matter arises from age related changes in brain anatomy, due to a partial-volume effect (PVE) in regions where the shrinking white matter becomes thinner than the resolution of the detector system. The detected rCBF will then be influenced by surrounding grey matter which has a higher rCBF [20]. Losses with age, measured with SPECT and positron emission tomography (PET), have been consistently reported in the frontal lobe, in particular the anterior cingulate, but also in the insula and superior temporal and parietal lobes [20].…”

“…The detected rCBF will then be influenced by surrounding grey matter which has a higher rCBF [20]. Losses with age, measured with SPECT and positron emission tomography (PET), have been consistently reported in the frontal lobe, in particular the anterior cingulate, but also in the insula and superior temporal and parietal lobes [20].…”

Non-invasive assessment of cerebral blood flow changes during complex activation

“…Previous studies examined the influence of age and gender on brain perfusion [25], using 99 mTc-HMPAO and 99mTc-EDC SPECT [26][27][28]. In this study, 15 subjects underwent Translational Neuroscience…”