Longitudinal+Magnetic+Resonance+Imaging+Study+of+Older+Adults+A+Shrinking+Brain

Resnick, Susan, Pham, Dzung, Kraut, Michael, Zonderman, Alan, Davatzikos, Christos. “Longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies of Older Adults: A Shrinking Brain.” //The Journal of// //Neuroscience// 23.8 (2003): 3295-3301. Web. 14 Jun 2016.

This study looks at 92 non-dementia participants to study the “normal” aging of the human brain and decrease in its size. Overall, there was consistent grey and white matter volume loss through the images down from initial, after two years, and after four years. These losses don’t take precedence over males or females or sex. Because neurodegenerative diseases are linked to “loss of mesial temporal lobe tissue, particularly in hippocampus and entorhinal cortex,” this study can help predict other impairments in other brain regions than previously stated. The people showing more degeneration in the temporal and frontal regions of the brain are more apt to get Alzheimer’s disease.

This study breaks down the degeneration of each part of the brain in four years using MRI data for grey and white matter volume. Looking at the temporal and frontal lobes, the two to look out for when concerned about dementia, they lost the most volume of white/grey matter over the course of the study. Considering the symptomology of Dementia, the losses of the frontal and temporal lobes make sense. This study is used for healthy patients, not for those with dementia, so would the degenerative paces for those with early on-set or early diagnosed dementia mimic these patterns or surpass the speed of loss?