A slower rate of sulcal widening in the brains of the nondemented oldest old
Hui Tang,
Tao Liu,
Hao Liu,
Jiyang Jiang,
Jian Cheng,
Haijun Niu,
Shuyu Li,
Henry Brodaty,
Perminder Sachdev,
Wei Wen
Affiliations
Hui Tang
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Tao Liu
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China; Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Big Data-Based Precision Medicine, Beijing, China; Corresponding author at: Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.
Hao Liu
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Jiyang Jiang
Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Jian Cheng
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Big Data-Based Precision Medicine, Beijing, China
Haijun Niu
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Shuyu Li
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Henry Brodaty
Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration, School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Perminder Sachdev
Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; Neuropsychiatric Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Wei Wen
Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; Neuropsychiatric Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia
The relationships between aging and brain morphology have been reported in many previous structural brain studies. However, the trajectories of successful brain aging in the extremely old remain underexplored. In the limited research on the oldest old, covering individuals aged 85 years and older, there are very few studies that have focused on the cortical morphology, especially cortical sulcal features. In this paper, we measured sulcal width and depth as well as cortical thickness from T1-weighted scans of 290 nondemented community-dwelling participants aged between 76 and 103 years. We divided the participants into young old (between 76 and 84; mean = 80.35±2.44; male/female = 76/88) and oldest old (between 85 and 103; mean = 91.74±5.11; male/female = 60/66) groups. The results showed that most of the examined sulci significantly widened with increased age and that the rates of sulcal widening were lower in the oldest old. The spatial pattern of the cortical thinning partly corresponded with that of sulcal widening. Compared to females, males had significantly wider sulci, especially in the oldest old. This study builds a foundation for future investigations of neurocognitive disorders and neurodegenerative diseases in the oldest old, including centenarians.
