Longitudinal Assessment of Global and Regional Rate of Grey Matter Atrophy in 1,172 Healthy Older Adults: Modulation by Sex and Age

Abstract

To characterize the neuroanatomical changes in healthy older adults is important to differentiate pathological from normal brain structural aging. The present study investigated the annualized rate of GM atrophy in a large sample of older participants, focusing on the hippocampus, and searching for modulation by age and sex. In this 4-year longitudinal community cohort study, we used a VBM analysis to estimate the annualized rate of GM loss, at both the global and regional levels, in 1,172 healthy older adults (65–82 years) scanned at 1.5T. The global annualized rate of GM was −4.0 cm3/year (−0.83%/year). The highest rates of regional GM loss were found in the frontal and parietal cortices, middle occipital gyri, temporal cortex and hippocampus. The rate of GM atrophy was higher in women (−4.7 cm3/year, −0.91%/year) than men (−3.3 cm3/year, −0.65%/year). The global annualized rate of GM atrophy remained constant throughout the age range of the cohort, in both sexes. This pattern was replicated at the regional level, with the exception of the hippocampi, which showed a rate of GM atrophy that accelerated with age (2.8%/year per year of age) similarly for men and women. The present study reports a global and regional description of the annualized rate of grey matter loss and its evolution after the age of 65. Our results suggest greater anatomical vulnerability of women in late life and highlight a specific vulnerability of the hippocampus to the aging processes after 65 years of age.

Normative data for subcortical regional volumes over the lifetime of the adult human brain

“…16! studies (Crivello et al, 2014;Fjell et al, 2009;Jancke et al, 2015), which showed no or subtle sex by age interaction for subcortical structures.…”

“…Whether differences in regional brain volumes between men and women remains after taking into account TIV are still a matter of debate in the literature (Crivello et al, 2014;Jancke et al, 2015;Leonard et al, 2008;Luders et al, 2009), but previous results indicated that the effect of sex on regional brain volumes is heterogeneous across the brain. Our results are in agreement with this finding, showing that although sex improved the prediction in all models, its influence had notable discrepancies between regions and diminishes with age in some regions.…”

Prefrontal cortex of the brain of men and women in old age

“…По данным других авторов [9] уменьшение объема лобной доли мозга в процессе старения в большей степени выражено у мужчин, чем у женщин. Лонгитудинальные исследования глобальных и региональных темпов атрофии серого вещества, проведенные на одной и той же группе людей с промежутками в 4 года, показали, что женщины после 65 лет имеют более высокую, чем у мужчин скорость атрофии серого вещества в целом, а также в нижней, средней и верхней лобной извилинах [14]. Причины половых различий атрофии мозга при старении не совсем ясны и могут быть обусловлены влиянием как внутренних, так и внешних факторов.…”

A 3 tesla magnetic resonance imaging volumetric analysis of the hippocampal formation: dependence on handedness and age

“…on the lateralisation of certain functions in the cerebral hemispheres [30,41,44], as well as on the age of the examined patients [2,8,16,30,33]. Some studies indicated that certain cognitive functions or the particular neurological diseases affecting the HF have preference for the left or the right hippocampus of either the left-or right-handed persons, in whom they usually cause a reduction of the grey matter [10,20,28,29].…”

“…the age, handedness and gender [2,8,29,44]. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to determine the possible differences in the volumes of the right and left hippocampal formation among healthy right-handed and left-handed subjects of both sexes, and to determine whether those differences are age related.…”