title: Accelerated longitudinal cortical thinning in adolescence.
abstract: It remains unclear if changes of the cerebral cortex occur gradually from childhood to adulthood, or if adolescence marks a differential period of cortical development. In the current study of 90 healthy volunteers aged 5-32years (48 females, 85 right handed) with 180 scans (2 scans for each participant with ~4year gaps), thinning of overall mean thickness and across the four major cortical lobes bilaterally was observed across this full age span. However, the thinning rate, calculated as Δcortical thickness/Δage (mm/year) between scans of each participant, revealed an accelerated cortical thinning during adolescence, which was preceded by less thinning in childhood and followed by decelerated thinning in young adulthood. Males and females showed similarly faster thinning rates during adolescence relative to young adults. The underlying basis and role of accelerated cortical thinning during adolescence for cognition, behaviour and disorders that appear at such a stage of development remains to be determined in future work.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: dzhou2@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Dongming
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: clebel@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lebel
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Centre for Neuroscience, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: treit@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Treit
authors.affiliation: McConnell Brain Imaging Center, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Electronic address: alan@bic.mni.mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Centre for Neuroscience, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: christian.beaulieu@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Beaulieu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000254:growth & development*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescents; Brain maturity; Children; Cortical thickness; Development; Longitudinal; MRI