Correlations among Brain Gray Matter Volumes, Age, Gender, and Hemisphere in Healthy Individuals

Taki, Yasuyuki; Thyreau, Benjamin; Kinomura, Shigeo; Sato, Kazunori; Goto, Ryoi; Kawashima, Ryuta; Fukuda, Hiroshi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022734

Cited by 135 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(101 reference statements)

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“…We showed an age-related reduction in gray matter volumes predominantly laterally, as reported previously (19). Although there was no significant sex-specific difference in these areas, the progression and pattern of reduction differed slightly between the sexes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Age-Related Sex-Specific Changes in Brain Metabolism and Morphology

et al. 2015

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With a large database, we aimed to evaluate sex-specific distinctive changes in brain glucose metabolism and morphology during normal aging using MRI and 18 F-FDG PET. Methods: A total of 963 cognitively healthy adults were included in this study. All subjects completed a medical questionnaire, took the mini-mental state examination, and underwent brain MRI and whole-body 18 F-FDG PET. The MR and PET images were statistically analyzed using 3-dimensional stereotactic surface projection. All images were corrected for whole-brain pixel value to identify the brain regions with significant changes, and regions of interest were set up with reference to Brodmann areas. We evaluated morphologic and glucose metabolic changes by cross-sectional analysis. The baseline database consisted of subjects from 30 to 40 y old, and the age-step for comparison was 5-y ranges. We also compared sex-specific differences in MR and PET images in each age group. Results: Regarding age-related changes, in both sexes brain atrophy was observed in the lateral frontal and parietal regions and glucose hypometabolism in the medial frontal regions. There were significant differences in these parameters between the sexes; parallel changes in volume and metabolism were manifested in the medial frontal cortex in men and in the lateral and medial temporal cortex in women. By contrast, metabolism-dominant reductions were manifested in the lateral and medial parietal cortex in men and in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, including the Broca area, in women. These differences became insignificant in individuals 66 y or older. Conclusion: Our brain mapping study with a large number of reference human brain data demonstrated age-related parallel changes between morphology and metabolism in the medial frontal regions and sex-specific hypometabolism in the parietal (male) and ventrolateral prefrontal (female) cortices. These findings may suggest an aging vulnerability in sex-specific brain regions: the parietal cortex for visuospatial ability in men and the Broca area for speech processing in women. The current trend of an increase in the number of dementia patients, including those with Alzheimer disease (AD) (1), as well as the revised criteria for the diagnosis of dementia by the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer's Association (2-5), has brought researchers to place greater attention on early, preclinical, detection of changes in brain physiology. Indeed, in familial AD, pathologic changes in the brain seem to develop 25 y before the onset of clinical symptoms (6).To detect the preclinical stage of AD, it is necessary to catch subtle deviations from the healthy brain and, thus, to know the morphology and activity of a healthy brain for comparison. Several studies have used MRI or PET on cognitively normal people to evaluate age-related changes and sex-specific differences in the brain. To the best of our knowledge, however, the sexspecific differences in brain morphology and metabolism found by previous brain imaging studies were only in ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Age-Related Sex-Specific Changes in Brain Metabolism and Morphology

et al. 2015

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“…they decreased in their FC with rACC/mPFC when mental silence increased. However, because age was also included in the gray matter model that resulted in the rACC/mPFC seed and age is usually included as covariate in the VBM analysis due to a well-known negative correlation between age and gray matter (Taki et al, 2011) as well as in FC analyses (Zhang et al, 2016) and given the risk of false positives, we consider the age-covaried findings more robust and appropriate.…”

Section: Results Of the Correlation Analysis Within Meditators Betweementioning

confidence: 99%

Gray Matter and Functional Connectivity in Anterior Cingulate Cortex are Associated with the State of Mental Silence During Sahaja Yoga Meditation

et al. 2018

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Abstract-Some meditation techniques teach the practitioner to achieve the state of mental silence. The aim of this study was to investigate brain regions that are associated with their volume and functional connectivity (FC) with the depth of mental silence in long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. Twenty-three longterm practitioners of this meditation were scanned using Magnetic Resonance Imaging. In order to identify the neural correlates of the depth of mental silence, we tested which gray matter volumes (GMV) were correlated with the depth of mental silence and which regions these areas were functionally connected to under a meditation condition. GMV in medial prefrontal cortex including rostral anterior cingulate cortex were positively correlated with the subjective perception of the depth of mental silence inside the scanner. Furthermore, there was significantly increased FC between this area and bilateral anterior insula/putamen during a meditation-state specifically, while decreased connectivity with the right thalamus/parahippocampal gyrus was present during the meditation-state and the resting-state. The capacity of long-term meditators to establish a durable state of mental silence inside an MRI scanner was associated with larger gray matter volume in a medial frontal region that is crucial for topdown cognitive, emotion and attention control. This is furthermore corroborated by increased FC of this region during the meditation-state with bilateral anterior insula/putamen, which are important for interoception, emotion, and attention regulation. The findings hence suggest that the depth of mental silence is associated with medial fronto-insular-striatal networks that are crucial for top-down attention and emotional control.

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“…From postmortem studies and in vivo imaging studies, it is well known that the brain enlarges as head size increases during maturation, and that the brain shrinks with aging (62)(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)(68)(69)(70)(71)(72)(73). The entire intracranial volume, including both brain and cerebrospinal fluid, grows exponentially during childhood, reaching a maximum volume between early childhood and adolescence (65).…”

Section: Volumetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The maturational changes include both progressive processes (eg, myelination) and regressive processes (eg, synaptic pruning), which are thought to result in a decline in regional gray matter volume or cortical thinning (67).…”

Section: Volumetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of morphometric studies of adult brains suggest that aging predominantly and substantially affects the gray matter volume, whereas white matter volume is relatively preserved until very old ages, resulting in a quadratic association of white matter volume with age in contrast to a somewhat linear age dependency of gray matter volume in aging brains (Fig 9) (6,62,63,(66)(67)(68)(69)(70). In the studies of regional volumetry, accelerated volume loss during brain aging is seen in specific structures, Figure 8.…”

Section: Volumetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multispectral Quantitative MR Imaging of the Human Brain: Lifetime Age-related Effects

Watanabe¹,

Liao²,

Jara³

et al. 2013

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Quantitative magnetic resonance (MR) imaging allows visualization of age-related changes in the normal human brain from functional, biochemical, and morphologic perspectives. Findings at quantitative MR imaging support age-related microstructural changes in the brain: (a) volume expansion, increased myelination, and axonal growth, which establish neural connectivity in neurodevelopment, followed by (b) volume loss, myelin breakdown, and axonal degradation, leading to the disruption of neural integrity later in life. A rapid growth change followed by a continuous slower change in quantitative MR parameters can be modeled with a logarithmic or exponential decay function. The age dependencies during adulthood often fit a quadratic model for transitional changes with accelerated aging effects or a linear model for steady changes.Understanding these general trends over the human life span can improve assessment for a specific disease by helping determine appropriate study settings. Once a consensus on acquisition techniques and image processing algorithms has been reached, quantitative MR imaging can play an important role in the assessment of disease states affecting the brain.

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Correlations among Brain Gray Matter Volumes, Age, Gender, and Hemisphere in Healthy Individuals

Cited by 135 publications

References 73 publications

Age-Related Sex-Specific Changes in Brain Metabolism and Morphology

Age-Related Sex-Specific Changes in Brain Metabolism and Morphology

Gray Matter and Functional Connectivity in Anterior Cingulate Cortex are Associated with the State of Mental Silence During Sahaja Yoga Meditation

Multispectral Quantitative MR Imaging of the Human Brain: Lifetime Age-related Effects

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