Effects of age on volumes of cortex, white matter and subcortical structures.
The effect of age was investigated in and compared across 16 automatically segmented brain measures: cortical gray matter, cerebral white matter, hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, the accumbens area, caudate, putamen, pallidum, brainstem, cerebellar cortex, cerebellar white matter, the lateral ventricle, the inferior lateral ventricle, and the 3rd and 4th ventricle. Significant age effects were found for all volumes except pallidum and the 4th ventricle. Heterogeneous age responses were seen in that age relationships for cortex, amygdala, thalamus, the accumbens area, and caudate were linear, while cerebral white matter, hippocampus, brainstem, cerebellar white, and gray matter, as well as volume of the lateral, inferior lateral, and 3rd ventricles showed curvilinear relationships with age. In general, the findings point to global and large effects of age across brain volumes.
Walhovd
Kristine B
KB
University of Oslo, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 1094 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway. kristine@walhovd.com
Fjell
Anders M
AM
Reinvang
Ivar
I
Lundervold
Arvid
A
Dale
Anders M
AM
Eilertsen
Dag E
DE
Quinn
Brian T
BT
Salat
David
D
Makris
Nikos
N
Fischl
Bruce
B
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology* / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology* / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D020547:Lateral Ventricles; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric