Brain scans revealed that among 4,726 participants with healthy cognition, there were “minor, yet systematic gender differences” in how neural tissue atrophies. The human brain naturally shrinks with age, and those who die from Alzheimer’s disease have brains showing significant volume loss. Women are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at twice the rate of men, but surprisingly, not much is known about how a person’s gender affects brain size as they age.
Anne Ravndal, a co-researcher in the study and a neuroscientist at the University of Oslo in Norway, stated to Nature magazine: “If women’s brains deteriorated more, it could help explain the higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s among them.” Ravndal and an international team of researchers gathered more than 12,000 brain scan images collected over the years from participants aged 17 to 95, each undergoing at least two brain MRIs with an average interval of about three years.
In contrast, women showed deterioration in fewer areas, and the thickness of their cortex was less altered with age. Some studies suggest that shrinkage can sometimes be beneficial, as mentioned by the magazine. Undoubtedly, the site of volume loss may offer important clues, and surprisingly, Ravndal and her colleagues found no difference in changes in the volume of the hippocampus—a neural center for memory and learning closely associated with dementia.
