Age-Related Effects and Sex Differences Assignment Sample

Age-Related Effects and Sex Differences in Gray Matter Density, Volume, Mass, and Cortical Thickness from Childhood to Young Adulthood

As the age increases there are structural changes in the brain of a person such that it can cause behavioural changes in the brain of the person. For the evaluation of the changes in the volume of the brain which occurs due to the change in the density of the gray matter and white matter is usually evaluated by the help of brain imaging (Gennatas et al., 2017). These measures can be derived with the help of T1-weighted imaging which includes g gray matter density (GMD), gray matter volume (GMV), and cortical thickness (CT). These changes are not only evident with age but also with the gender of a person. The aim of the present article that is under the review was to characterize the effect of age and gender on the density, volume and mass of gray matter from the dataset of Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort. Similar studies have been conducted earlier for the exploration of similar findings. The present study was conducted with a view to challenging the vague statement that all gray matters declines with an increase in age especially from childhood to adolescence (Gennatas et al., 2017).

In the present study the subset of data was taken from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort and in this study 1189 subjects were selected of which 648 females and the age of the patients ranged from 8 to 23 years (Gennatas et al., 2017). Imaging of the brain was done in the same manner for all the subjects. The key findings that were seen in the present articles showed that as the age of the patient or study subjects increases the density of the gray matter increases but at the same time the volume and the thickness of the gray matter decreases. When the differences between the genders were explored it was seen that in females the volume of gray matter was less but the density was higher compared to male study participants.

The article further shows the result which was explored in case of regional variability in relation to age and gender. The whole gray matter is known to be divided into 1625 regions and each of these regions known as parcels and depending on the position in the lobes. The lobes are the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, insula, caudate, putamen, thalamus, and cerebellum and these were in relation to MNI atlas (Gennatas et al., 2017). It was seen that as the age increases the volume of gray matter and the cortical matter was reduced in all the MNI regions except temporal lobe, insula and cerebellum. While the changes with respect to gender it was seen that at a lower age the gender difference was not profound but as the age increases the lead was seen in the female gender. The only change that is seen is present in cortical thickness which was profound in frontal, occipital lobe and insula. The density of the gray matter was negatively correlated to the volume and thickness and it is seen throughout the brain and cortex (Gennatas et al., 2017). GMM which is a multiplication product of the volume and density of the gray matter and it is seen that it was positively correlated to the volume and cortical thickness and it was seen in all the regions of the brain except insula.

In the article, the authors discussed that all the gray matter does not decline in adolescence the density of the brain overall increases as there is the transition from childhood to adolescence while there is a decrease in volume and thickness. These changes are seen in frontotemporal cortex and hippocampus which is present in temporal lobe can also be stated that it might decrease density while the volume and thickness might decrease (Gennatas et al., 2017).

A similar result was seen in a study which was conducted on a sample of 1189 youths' brains were scanned. The procedure used was non-invasive in nature and it conducted to evaluate the structure and function of the brain and integration of the same with the genomic, cognitive and accuracy of the clinical data. The results of the study were in accordance with the results of the chosen article that density of gray matter increases from childhood to adulthood while the volume and cortical thickness decrease. Female study participants were seen to have a lesser volume of gray matter compared to males while the density was higher compared to males (Gennatas et al., 2017).

Another study was conducted with the aim to understand the differences in brain structure and its impact on the function of the brain with respect to sex of the youth including adolescents and young adults. The results were in accordance to the present article as well as the study mentioned above that the gray matter density is higher in females compared to males while the volume is lesser (Kaczkurkin et al., 2019). In another study which was conducted with an aim to understand the effect of age development on the brain in the early years of life and the imaging of the brain was done by magnetic resonance imaging. It was seen that during the first few years of life that is during the early childhood there was thinning of the cortex but as the age increases there is the thickening of the cortex of the brain. The authors suggested that there were inconsistencies in the trajectory of brain development and maturation and understanding them is important to understand the neurodevelopment (Walhovd et al., 2016).

Similar results of trajectories of the brain were seen in another study along with the gender differences which were seen in females and males were in accordance to the results of the present selected article (Ducharme et al., 2016). Also, in a study conducted by Tamnes et al. (2017), it was seen that the decrease in density and increase in volumes were positively correlated in the sulcus of prefrontal and temporal cortexes while a negative correlation was seen in gyral regions of posterior cortices and it was similar to the present article. It can be concluded that as the age increases the density of gray matter decreases but the volume of brain increases and this can affect the size and structure of hippocampus and it can improve or reduce memory areas of the brain.

References for Age-Related Effects and Sex Differences in Gray Matter Density

Ducharme, S., Albaugh, M. D., Nguyen, T. V., Hudziak, J. J., Mateos-Pérez, J. M., Labbe, A., ... & Brain Development Cooperative Group. (2016). Trajectories of cortical thickness maturation in normal brain development—The importance of quality control procedures. Neuroimage, 125, 267-279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.10.010.

Gennatas, E. D. (2017). Towards precision psychiatry: Gray matter development and cognition in adolescence. Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2302. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2302.

Gennatas, E. D., Avants, B. B., Wolf, D. H., Satterthwaite, T. D., Ruparel, K., Ciric, R., ... & Gur, R. C. (2017). Age-related effects and sex differences in gray matter density, volume, mass, and cortical thickness from childhood to young adulthood. Journal of Neuroscience, 37(20), 5065-5073.

Kaczkurkin, A. N., Raznahan, A., & Satterthwaite, T. D. (2019). Sex differences in the developing brain: insights from multimodal neuroimaging. Neuropsychopharmacology, 44(1), 71-85. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-018-0111-z.

Tamnes, C. K., Herting, M. M., Goddings, A. L., Meuwese, R., Blakemore, S. J., Dahl, R. E., ... & Mills, K. L. (2017). Development of the cerebral cortex across adolescence: A multisample study of inter-related longitudinal changes in cortical volume, surface area, and thickness. Journal of Neuroscience, 37(12), 3402-3412. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3302-16.2017.

Walhovd, K. B., Fjell, A. M., Giedd, J., Dale, A. M., & Brown, T. T. (2016). Through thick and thin: A need to reconcile contradictory results on trajectories in human cortical development. Cerebral Cortex, 27(2), bhv301. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhv301.

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