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. 2019 Sep:81:146-156.
doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2019.05.020. Epub 2019 Jun 5.

Sex differences in brain aging and predictors of neurodegeneration in cognitively healthy older adults

Nicole M Armstrong  1 , Yang An  1 , Lori Beason-Held  1 , Jimit Doshi  2 , Guray Erus  2 , Luigi Ferrucci  3 , Christos Davatzikos  2 , Susan M Resnick  4
Affiliations

Sex differences in brain aging and predictors of neurodegeneration in cognitively healthy older adults

Nicole M Armstrong et al. Neurobiol Aging. 2019 Sep.

Abstract

We evaluated sex differences in MRI-based volume loss and differences in predictors of this neurodegeneration in cognitively healthy older adults. Mixed-effects regression was used to compare regional brain volume trajectories of 295 male and 328 female cognitively healthy Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging participants, aged 55-92 years, with up to 20 years of follow-up and to assess sex differences in the associations of age, hypertension, obesity, APOE e4 carrier status, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol with regional brain volume trajectories. For both sexes, older age was associated with steeper volumetric declines in many brain regions, with sex differences in volume loss observed in frontal, temporal, and parietal regions. In males, hypertension and higher high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were protective against volume loss in the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and parahippocampal gyrus. In females, hypertension was associated with steeper volumetric decline in gray matter, and obesity was protective against volume loss in temporal gray matter. Predictors of volume change may affect annual rates of volume change differently between men and women.

Keywords: Cardiovascular risk factors; Cognitively normal; Neurodegeneration.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Sex differences in volumetric change (in cm3) in cognitively normal participants in Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (N=617) Note: The color bar represents t-values from the results of the linear mixed effects models. These models consisted of fixed effects (baseline intracranial volume (ICV), image type [1.5-T SPGR vs. 3-T MPRAGE], age, sex, race, time since first MRI, and two-way interactions of image type, age, sex, and race with time) and random effects (intercept and time) with unstructured covariance. Note that the colors are uniform within regional labels since the figures depict ROI rather than voxel-based analyses.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Volumetric changes (in cm3) in total brain, ventricles, gray matter, and hippocampus between males and females in the overall sample (N=617) Note: Predicted values for volumes come from linear-mixed effects models consisting of fixed effects, i.e., baseline intracranial volume (ICV), image type (1.5-T SPGR vs. 3-T MPRAGE), age, sex, race, hypertension, obesity, APOE e4 carrier status, HDL cholesterol, time since first MRI, and two-way interactions of image type, age, sex, race, hypertension, obesity, APOE e4 carrier status, HDL cholesterol with time, and random effects (intercept and time) with unstructured covariance.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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