Abstract
We investigated the relationship between age, structural properties of selected cerebral regions, and cognitive performance in healthy adults, 18 to 78 years old. Spin-lattice relaxation time (T1), measured by nuclear magnetic resonance, was used to describe the structural composition of the brain tissue. Temporal lobe white-matter T1 showed age-related prolongation best described by a quadratic polynomial. There was a significant cubic trend in the association of hippocampal (gray-matter) T1 with age. In the examined regions of the medial temporal lobes, normally observed differentiation between gray- and white-matter T1 diminished linearly with age and dis-appeared almost completely in the elderly. Age and the ratio of gray-to white-matter T1 accounted for 53% of the variance in a measure of fluid intelligence (Cattell Culture Fair Test); the unique contributions of age and of gray-white-matter T1 ratio were 23% and 3%, respectively. The largest share of the variance in fluid intelligence (27%) was explained by the common influence of age and gray-white-matter T1 ratio. The same set of variables explained no significant proportion of the variance in crystallized intelligence. The possible mechanisms underlying age-related changes in gray-white-matter differentiation, their relationship to age-related selective deterioration of cognitive functions, and the implications of the findings for research on biological markers of aging are discussed.
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The comments of Sarah Raz and two anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated. This research was supported in part by the Biomedical Research Support Grant S07-RR0-5366-26 to N. Raz through the Chicago Medical School.
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Raz, N., Millman, D. & Sarpel, G. Cerebral correlates of cognitive aging: Gray-white-matter differentiation in the medial temporal lobes, and fluid versus crystallized abilities. Psychobiology 18, 475–481 (1990). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333096
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333096