One year brain atrophy evident in healthy aging

By Anders M. Fjell, Kristine B. Walhovd, Christine Fennema-Notestine, Linda K. McEvoy, Donald J. Hagler Jr., Dominic Holland, J. Brewer, A. M. Dale. Journal of Neuroscience, 2009

686 citations recorded by the source corpus.

An accurate description of changes in the brain in healthy aging is needed to understand the basis of age-related changes in cognitive function. Cross-sectional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies suggest thinning of the cerebral cortex, volumetric reductions of most subcortical structures, and ventricular expansion. However, there is a paucity of detailed longitudinal studies to support the cross-sectional findings. In the present study, 142 healthy elderly participants (60–91 years of age) were followed with repeated MRI, and were compared with 122 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD). Volume changes were measured across the entire cortex and in 48 regions of interest. Cortical reductions in the healthy elderly were extensive after only 1 year, especially evident in temporal and prefrontal cortices, where annual decline was ∼0.5%. All subcortical and ventricular regions except caudate nucleus and the fourth ventricle changed significantly over 1 year. Some of the atrophy occurred in areas vulnerable to AD, while other changes were observed in areas less characteristic of the disease in early stages. This suggests that the changes are not primarily driven by degenerative processes associated with AD, although it is likely that preclinical changes associated with AD are superposed on changes due to normal aging in some subjects, especially in the temporal lobes. Finally, atrophy was found to accelerate with increasing age, and this was especially prominent in areas vulnerable to AD. Thus, it is possible that the accelerating atrophy with increasing age is due to preclinical AD.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Mental health, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6f44ddf8e09b6aa7c4ff9ee5187be63b4e5d70e2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Psychiatry and Mental health

In Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

Citations in the corpus

Effects of memory training on cortical thickness in the elderly (2010, background): “Aging is associated with cortical thinning (Fjell et al., 2009b; Salat et al., 2004, 2009; Westlye et al., 2009, in press-b).”
What is normal in normal aging? Effects of Aging, Amyloid and Alzheimer’s Disease on the Cerebral Cortex and the Hippocampus (2014, methodology): “…and state-of-the-art analysis tools (Reuter et al., 2010; Holland and Dale, 2011; Holland et al., 2012b; Reuter et al., 2012), brain changes can be detected reliably and monitored over intervals as short as one year or less even in healthy elderly (Fjell et al., 2009a; Murphy et al., 2010).”
Predicting brain age with deep learning from raw imaging data results in a reliable and heritable biomarker (2016, background): “Firstly, brain ageing is generally speaking a global phenomenon, with all brain regions being affected (Fjell et al., 2009).”
Trajectories of brain aging in middle-aged and older adults: Regional and individual differences (2010, positive): “…cortex, a region that evidenced age-related declines in several samples (Pfefferbaum et al., 1998; Resnick et al., 2003; Raz et al., 2005; Driscoll et al., 2009; Fjell et al., 2009b) and the putamen, in which age-related shrinkage has been reported (Raz et al., 2003a; Fjell et al., 2009b).”
The Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative: A review of papers published since its inception (2011, positive): “Fjell et al [200] presented the first detailed longitudinal study of brain atrophy in healthy elderly subjects aimed at understanding age-related changes in cognitive function.”
Statistical Analysis of Longitudinal Neuroimage Data with Linear Mixed Effects Models (2012, methodology): “…e.g. (Asami et al., 2011; Blockx et al., 2011; Chetelat et al., 2005; Davatzikos and Resnick, 2002; Desikan et al., 2011; Driscoll et al., 2011; Fjell et al., 2009; Fotenos et al., 2005; Fouquet et al., 2009; Frings et al., 2011; Giedd et al., 1999; Hedman et al., 2011; Ho et al., 2003;…”
The Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative: Progress report and future plans (2010, background): “[61] Fjell AM, Walhovd KB, Fennema-Notestine C, McEvoy LK, Hagler DJ, Holland D, Brewer JB, Dale AM.”