Brain perfusion SPECT: age- and sex-related effects correlated with voxel-based morphometric findings in healthy adults.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate brain perfusion at single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) as a function of age and sex in healthy adult volunteers and to correlate perfusion with gray matter concentration determined by using voxel-based morphometry (VBM).


METHODS
Eighty-one healthy volunteers underwent both technetium 99m ethylene cysteine dimer SPECT and three-dimensional magnetization preparation rapid acquisition gradient-echo magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Statistical parametric mapping was used to conduct VBM analysis of the morphologic data, which were compared voxel by voxel with the results of a similar analysis of the perfusion data and more specifically in brain areas showing significant perfusion changes.


RESULTS
VBM data, as compared with perfusion changes, indicated a more symmetric age-related gray matter volume decrease along the Sylvian fissure and in subcortical regions (P < .001). The combination of functional and structural changes indicated a relatively lower functional decrease with aging, as compared with the structural atrophy in the visual, parietal, sensorimotor, and right prefrontal cortices. Significant relative morphologic sex-based differences were found in the cerebellar and temporal cortices, but the comparison did not reveal significant differences between the functional and morphometric data.


CONCLUSIONS
Age-related perfusion changes are paralleled by similar more symmetric changes in gray matter concentration, which are more prominent than the perfusion changes in some regions. No sex-based differences between perfusion and gray matter concentration were found.
Van Laere
K J
KJ
Division of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. koen.vanlaere@rug.ac.be
Dierckx
R A
RA
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation; D003545:Cysteine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012016:Reference Values; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; C059659:technetium Tc 99m bicisate; D003545:Cysteine