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Published on: January 2, 2012
Atlas of Brain Aging Derived from Cortical Surface Area Changes
Xingyan Chen1,2, Weichen Yan3, Shichao Su2
1Central Hospital of Dalian University of Technology, Dalian Municipal Central Hospital, Dalian, 116033, Liaoning, China.
Summary
We developed a brain aging atlas revealing three distinct cortical atrophy patterns. These patterns show regional differences, hemispheric asymmetry, and link to cognitive decline, offering new insights into brain aging.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Radiology
- Gerontology
Background:
- Brain aging involves region-specific cortical surface area atrophy.
- A specialized atlas for healthy brain aging is currently lacking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To construct a brain aging atlas using a novel two-stage spatially regularized non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) strategy.
- To identify distinct patterns of cortical atrophy in healthy aging adults.
Main Methods:
- Applied a two-stage spatially regularized NMF (ST-NMF) to 1,066 cortical surface area scans from 436 cognitively normal adults (aged 51-96).
- Extracted morphological covariance features and refined smoothing for spatial continuity and data-driven patterns.
Main Results:
- Identified three distinct atrophy patterns: frontal-temporal-occipital dominant (FTOD), parietal slow-changing (PSC), and Diffuse.
- Cortical aging shows spatiotemporal heterogeneity, with faster atrophy in the right hemisphere, indicating significant hemispheric asymmetry.
- Specific atrophy patterns correlate with cognitive performance: FTOD preservation linked to less decline, while Diffuse/PSC preservation linked to more decline.
Conclusions:
- The developed ST-NMF brain aging atlas provides a systematic framework for understanding cortical aging.
- Cortical atrophy patterns exhibit heterogeneity, asymmetry, and differential cognitive associations.
- This atlas offers novel insights into the complex processes of healthy brain aging.
