Life-Span Changes of the Human Brain White Matter: Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Volumetry

Westlye, Lars T.; Walhovd, Kristine B.; Dale, Anders M.; Bjørnerud, Atle; Due‐Tønnessen, Paulina; Engvig, Andreas; Grydeland, Håkon; Tamnes, Christian K.; Østby, Ylva; Fjell, Anders M.

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp280

Cited by 687 publications

(763 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…We found reduced cortical volume and thickness, as well as reduced FA and increased MD and RD values for older adults compared with the younger group (Fjell et al, 2009;Westlye et al, 2010;see Supplementary Materials 2 & 3 for detailed results).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Aging and large-scale functional networks: White matter integrity, gray matter volume, and functional connectivity in the resting state

et al. 2015

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Healthy ageing is accompanied by neurobiological changes that affect the brain's functional organization and the individual's cognitive abilities. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of global age-related differences in the cortical white and gray matter on neural activity in three key large-scale networks. We used functionalstructural covariance network analysis to assess resting state activity in the default mode network (DMN), the fronto-parietal network (FPN), and the salience network show that, in the direct comparison of resting state activity, young but not older adults reliably engage the SN and FPN in addition to the DMN, suggesting that older adults recruit these networks less consistently. Second, our results demonstrate that agerelated decline in white matter integrity and gray matter volume is associated with activity in prefrontal nodes of the SN and FPN, possibly reflecting compensatory mechanisms. We suggest that age-related differences in gray and white matter properties differentially affect the ability of the brain to engage and coordinate largescale functional networks that are central to efficient cognitive functioning.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Aging and large-scale functional networks: White matter integrity, gray matter volume, and functional connectivity in the resting state

et al. 2015

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“…WM FA tends to decrease with aging in men and women (reviewed in Moseley 2002). Similar to the volumetric data, FA peaks in early middle age when myelination peaks (Kemper 1994) and then declines in the elderly at a rate that parallels or precedes WM volumetric loss (Hasan et al 2007;Hasan et al 2008;Hasan et al 2010;Lebel et al 2010;Westlye et al 2010). Regionally, age-related deficits of FA have been described in the genu of the CC centrum semiovale, frontal, and parietal pericallosal WM of men (Pfefferbaum et al 2000), with a similar pattern found in both sexes (Sullivan et al 2001).…”

Section: Diffusion Tensor Imaging In Humansmentioning

confidence: 79%

Age-related changes in human and non-human primate white matter: from myelination disturbances to cognitive decline

Kohama

Rosene

Sherman

2011

AGE

106

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The cognitive decline associated with normal aging was long believed to be due primarily to decreased synaptic density and neuron loss. Recent studies in both humans and non-human primates have challenged this idea, pointing instead to disturbances in white matter (WM) including myelin damage. Here, we review both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in humans and non-human primates that collectively support the hypothesis that WM disturbances increase with age starting at middle age in humans, that these disturbances contribute to age-related cognitive decline, and that age-related WM changes may occur as a result of free radical damage, degenerative changes in cells in the oligodendrocyte lineage, and changes in microenvironments within WM.

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“…This can be summarized by the metric of fractional anisotropy (FA), which is a scalar value between 0 and 1 describing the degree of anisotropy of the diffusion at every voxel. Developmental studies show steady increases in FA between childhood and adulthood (Imperati et al., 2011; Muftuler et al., 2012; Westlye et al., 2009), which is likely to reflect increased myelination (Dean et al., 2014). …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in brain morphology and working memory capacity across childhood

Bathelt

Gathercole

Johnson

et al. 2017

Developmental Science

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Working memory (WM) skills are closely associated with learning progress in key areas such as reading and mathematics across childhood. As yet, however, little is known about how the brain systems underpinning WM develop over this critical developmental period. The current study investigated whether and how structural brain correlates of components of the working memory system change over development. Verbal and visuospatial short‐term and working memory were assessed in 153 children between 5.58 and 15.92 years, and latent components of the working memory system were derived. Fractional anisotropy and cortical thickness maps were derived from T1‐weighted and diffusion‐weighted MRI and processed using eigenanatomy decomposition. There was a greater involvement of the corpus callosum and posterior temporal white matter in younger children for performance associated with the executive part of the working memory system. For older children, this was more closely linked with the thickness of the occipitotemporal cortex. These findings suggest that increasing specialization leads to shifts in the contribution of neural substrates over childhood, moving from an early dependence on a distributed system supported by long‐range connections to later reliance on specialized local circuitry. Our findings demonstrate that despite the component factor structure being stable across childhood, the underlying brain systems supporting working memory change. Taking the age of the child into account, and not just their overall score, is likely to be critical for understanding the nature of the limitations on their working memory capacity.

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Life-Span Changes of the Human Brain White Matter: Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Volumetry

Cited by 687 publications

References 101 publications

Aging and large-scale functional networks: White matter integrity, gray matter volume, and functional connectivity in the resting state

Aging and large-scale functional networks: White matter integrity, gray matter volume, and functional connectivity in the resting state

Age-related changes in human and non-human primate white matter: from myelination disturbances to cognitive decline

Differences in brain morphology and working memory capacity across childhood

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