Gray Matter Volume and Cognitive Performance During Normal Aging. A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

Abstract

Normal aging is characterized by decline in cognitive functioning in conjunction with extensive gray matter (GM) atrophy. A first aim of this study was to determine GM volume differences related to aging by comparing two groups of participants, middle-aged group (MAG, mean age 41 years, N = 16) and older adults (OG, mean age 71 years, N = 14) who underwent an magnetic resonance images (MRI) voxel-based morphometry (VBM) evaluation. The VBM analyses included two optimized pipelines, for the cortex and for the cerebellum. Participants were also evaluated on a wide range of cognitive tests assessing both domain-general and language-specific processes, in order to examine how GM volume differences between OG and MAG relate to cognitive performance. Our results show smaller bilateral GM volume in the OG relative to the MAG, in several cerebral and right cerebellar regions involved in language and executive functions. Importantly, our results also revealed smaller GM volume in the right cerebellum in OG relative to MAG, supporting the idea of a complex cognitive role for this structure. This study provides a broad picture of cerebral, but also cerebellar and cognitive changes associated with normal aging.

Tau Protein is Associated with Longitudinal Memory Decline in Cognitively Healthy Subjects with Normal Alzheimer’s Disease Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarker Levels

“…In normal aging, the posterior cerebellar lobes show accelerated volume reduction with respect to other structures [62], and this reduction may be more relevant to cognitive performance than typically shown by studies of diseased patients with cortical lesions. In line with our results, other recent studies including similarly aged and cognitively healthy cohorts [63][64][65] show involvement of the cerebellum in memory and executive function tests. Taken together, our findings showed structural correlates of cognitive performance in a well-characterized sample of subjects with normal cognition and normal AD CSF biomarker levels, providing evidence on the most vulnerable brain systems related to learning and memory in aging.…”

Deficits in Mitochondrial Spare Respiratory Capacity Contribute to the Neuropsychological Changes of Alzheimer’s Disease

“…This may be explained by the fact that multiple factors can affect grey matter volume such as age, levels of education and brain reserve. It has been previously shown that smaller grey matter volumes in the frontal lobes associated with ageing are associated with worse performance on frontal lobe cognitive tests [54]. The neuropsychological assessment performed in this study mainly focused on temporal lobe cognitive functioning and not frontal lobe function.…”

White matter hyperintensities mediate gray matter volume and processing speed relationship in cognitively unimpaired participants

“…Normal aging is also characterized by gray matter volume (GMv) loss (Ramanoël et al, ) with the frontal and temporal lobes being the regions with the highest degree of GM loss (Driscoll et al, ), which is also considered to be marker of neurodegeneration (Dong et al, ). Cross‐sectional studies have also revealed a regional relationship between GMv and cognition in cognitively unimpaired individuals (Duarte et al, ; Tuladhar et al, ).…”

“…Normal aging is also characterized by gray matter volume (GMv) loss (Ramanoël et al, 2018) with the frontal and temporal lobes being the regions with the highest degree of GM loss (Driscoll et al, 2009), which is also considered to be marker of neurodegeneration (Dong et al, 2015).…”