MR evaluation of age-related increase of brain iron in young adult and older normal males

Overexpression of Alzheimer's Disease Amyloid-β Opposes the Age-dependent Elevations of Brain Copper and Iron

“…We hypothesize that the marked elevations in copper and iron as a product of age could explain the age-dependent onset of amyloid neuropathology in the Tg2576 model (35,37). Studies in humans suggest that the aging human brain follows a similar pattern of age-related changes, at least for iron (13,15,17,38,39) and cobalt (40). In the following model, if the changes in metals we observed in mice are also reflected in the aging human brain, then a senescent rise in brain copper and iron could be the neurochemical basis for age being the major risk factor for AD neuropathology (41).…”

“…Studies in mice and humans show that iron and copper levels increase with normal aging in several tissues, including brain (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17), while zinc levels either remain unchanged or show a slight decrease (14,16,18,19). Therefore, a breakdown of metal regulation could be an inevitable consequence of aging.…”

Effect of Age on MRI Phase Behavior in the Subcortical Deep Gray Matter of Healthy Individuals

“…After adjusting for confounders, strong associations were observed between SDGM structure mean phase, MP-LPV, and normalized volumes with age, corroborating previous findings that brain iron content increases when a person ages. 1,3,6,10,33 Interestingly, strong correlations were observed especially between the MP-LPV and brain volume.…”

“…1 Brain iron has been investigated in healthy individuals in both postmortem 1,2 and, more recently, in vivo studies with the use of different MR-based techniques. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Increased iron levels predominantly occur in brain subcortical deep gray matter (SDGM) structures such as the caudate, putamen, thalamus, red nucleus, and substantia nigra. Furthermore, it has been found that brain iron accumulation is influenced by sex.…”

Human brain myelination and amyloid beta deposition in Alzheimer's disease

“…Several lines of circumstantial evidence support the possibility that brain iron levels might be a risk factor for age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as AD [20,21]. Post mortem and in vivo studies have established that brain iron levels increase with age [21][22][23][24][25], and iron levels are abnormally elevated in age-related neurodegenerative diseases, suggesting that increased iron levels might contribute to their age risk factor [3,4,26]. Men have higher brain iron levels than women [21], and men also have a younger age at onset of AD [27,28].…”