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. 2022 Nov 24:9:1071002.
doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.1071002. eCollection 2022.

Age-related brain atrophy in cats without apparent neurological and behavioral signs using voxel-based morphometry

Yuji Hamamoto  1   2   3 , Yoshihiko Yu  2 , Rikako Asada  2 , Satoshi Mizuno  2 , Daisuke Hasegawa  2   3
Affiliations

Age-related brain atrophy in cats without apparent neurological and behavioral signs using voxel-based morphometry

Yuji Hamamoto et al. Front Vet Sci. .

Abstract

Introduction: Brain atrophy is observed with aging and may cause cognitive decline or dysfunction. Aging cats may demonstrate behavioral changes related to cognitive dysfunction. In the clinical veterinary field, although the conventional region of interest method by manual or semiauto tracing on magnetic resonance imaging is used to detect atrophy of regional structures, such as the hippocampus, it is difficult to assess atrophy globally. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) has been developed to detect global and regional abnormalities in humans. The purpose of the present study investigates whether the feline brain volume decreases with aging using VBM analysis.

Materials: A total of 65 cats, aged 17-200 months, without apparent neurological and behavioral signs were included in the statistical analysis.

Results: We observed that the gray matter in the bilateral parietal lobes was decreased significantly with aging. The regions that showed decreased volume included the right postcruciate, cingulate gyrus, rostral suprasylvian/ectosylvian gyri, and the left postcruciate gyrus. No significant reduction in white matter was observed. Together, our results show that age-related brain atrophy can be detected using VBM analysis.

Discussion: The age-related atrophy of the parietal cortex may not cause neurological and behavioral signs in cats. Therefore, veterinarians should consider age when assessing the relation between morphometric and functional abnormalities of the parietal cortex in cats.

Keywords: MRI; VBM; aging; brain atrophy; feline; parietal cortex.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Histogram showing the age distribution of cats in the present study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Correlation between age and volume in gray matter (A), white matter (B), and total brain (C). Increasing age was significantly associated with a decrease in gray matter (r = −0.491, p < 0.001) and the total brain volume (r = −0.416, p < 0.001). There is no significant correlation between aging and white matter volume (r = −0.050, p = 0.689).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Design matrix of the regional analysis corrected by total brain volume in SPM12 to evaluate aging changes in gray and white matter atrophy. A total number of cats in each condition is displayed along the ordinate and variables are represented in the abscissa. Three columns model the effects of intercept, age, and total brain volume. Age and total brain volume were used as a covariate. Values of each variable (columns) for each cat (rows) are represented by a grayscale color scheme.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Result of the VBM analysis in the regional analysis. The colored regions indicate that the family-wise error corrected p value is < 0.05. The decreased bilateral parietal cortex correlated with increased age.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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